Map of Nepal

Summary

Nepal’s decade-long civil war between government
forces and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M) claimed more than
13,000 lives and left at least 1,300 people missing. Until the 2006 peace
agreement both government security forces and the Maoists were responsible for
grave human rights abuses, including unlawful killings, torture, and enforced
disappearances.

What has remained largely undisclosed is the sexual violence
that occurred during the conflict. With the assistance of Advocacy Forum, a Kathmandu-based
human rights group, Human Rights Watch researchers met with dozens of women, a
few of whom described rape and sexual assault that occurred when they were
still children, including one who was 12-years-old at the time.

Both security forces and Maoist combatants committed
physical, verbal, and sexual violence. Members of the security forces raped and
sexually abused female combatants after arrest, and targeted female relatives
of Maoist suspects, or those they believed to be Maoist supporters because they
provided food and shelter. Maoist combatants raped women who stood up to them
and refused to support their party’s activities. In some cases we
documented, women were targeted if they were found alone; in other instances,
male relatives were nearby and could not or did not intervene.

Nepal’s government has acknowledged that women
suffered rape during these years. Yet it has failed to deliver on its promise
to end impunity for abusers, or to seek justice and reparations for victims of
human rights violations. These include victims of sexual violence who are
excluded from the Interim Relief Program (IRP) that compensates individuals
whose family members were killed or disappeared during the war.

Furthermore, the government has yet to introduce comprehensive
medical or psycho-social programs to benefit survivors of sexual violence from
the conflict-era and help them to cope with the long-term consequences of
violence. These could include physical ailments such as chronic pelvic pain,
gynecological and pregnancy complications, back pain, migraines, premenstrual
syndrome, and gastrointestinal disorders. Many women also spoke of ongoing
emotional and mental distress, sometimes fueled by rejection or ridicule by
husbands, family, or the community.

“[S]ometimes when he gets very angry he brings it [the
rape by Maoists] up and says I am a loose woman and I should get out of the
house,” Santoshi, who was raped by two men in 2006, said of her husband.
“His behavior towards me changed after this happened. We were happy
before this…. I feel worthless.”

To this day, fear of stigma and abuse means that many women
have never told their families, or even their husbands, about the abuse they
suffered.

In March 2013, the government passed a Truth and Reconciliation
Commission ordinance that called for a high-level commission to investigate
serious human rights violations committed during the 1996-2006 armed conflict.
Troublingly, however, it granted the commission discretion to recommend amnesty
for perpetrators. In January 2014, Nepal’s Supreme Court struck down the
ordinance, and directed the government to produce a bill consistent with
Nepal’s obligations under international law, including the Convention on
the Rights of the Child which prohibits sexual violence.

The following month, in February, Sushil Koirala of the
Nepali Congress Party was nominated prime minister of Nepal. The new
Constituent Assembly is expected to draft a constitution to make good on the
peace agreement, which includes among other things, the promise of justice and
accountability for the conflict’s victims. However, one of the first
actions of the new government was to enact a law establishing the Commission on
Investigation of Disappeared Persons, Truth and Reconciliation, which falls
short of the January Supreme Court directive. It has been challenged through
public interest litigation before the Supreme Court. The case has been heard,
and a verdict is pending.

However, renewed momentum around a Truth and Reconciliation Commission
(TRC), and the drafting of a new constitution, means there is now an
opportunity to rectify these historical injustices and ensure accountability
for conflict-era rape and other forms of sexual violence.

The new government should take immediate steps to investigate
sexual violence during the conflict, hold those responsible to account, and
ensure that victims receive effective remedies including medico-psychological
counseling and reparations. It should also remove significant barriers to
justice, including a 35-day reporting limitation from the date of a rape, and
amend the rape laws to include other forms of sexual assault.

Physical, Verbal, and Sexual Assault

Women and girls interviewed by Human Rights Watch described
being verbally, physically, and sexually assaulted by both sides in the
conflict, although there were fewer accounts of sexual violence by Maoists.

Sometimes the rapes were carried out by a single assailant;
in other cases, women described being gang-raped. In some instances, the women
said they had lost consciousness during the attack and did not know for sure
how many men had raped them. Human Rights Watch documented at least four
instances where sexual assault by the security forces included insertion of
objects inside women’s vaginas, forced oral or anal sex, or forced
masturbation. In one case, a woman said that police had rubbed salt and chili
powder into her vagina.

Some women, including Nandita, described being raped as
their children looked on, and of being wrested from infants that they were
holding. “He was crying a lot, and had been slapped a few times by the
men,” Nandita said of her son, who witnessed her assault. Manorama was
raped in 2002 just 11 days after giving birth, while she was at home recovering
from childbirth. In a few cases, women had children because of the rapes, or
suspected the children they subsequently bore were the result of their attacks.

In most cases, the sexual assaults were accompanied by
verbal attacks that included calling the women derogatory names, such as randi
(whore), and dire warnings not to tell anyone about the incident.

A few women also described horrifying physical attacks,
often preceding the rape. When Rekha resisted her attacker, a Maoist combatant,
in 2003, he hit her so hard that the skin from her skull and forehead came off,
and hung “like a curtain” in front of her face. She received 36
stiches.

Human Rights Watch researchers documented cases where women
or girls who were Maoist combatants or relatives of Maoist combatants were illegally
detained, tortured, and raped in custody. Gayatri, a minor at the time, was a
secondary school student when Maoists forcibly recruited her. Government forces
captured her in 2001, and, she says, raped her while she was illegally detained
at an army camp, leading to severe vaginal bleeding:

The rapes would start only at night and continued for many
days. I was blindfolded throughout. My hands were untied after the first few
days. There were around five or six officers every night.

Security forces also raped women during search operations,
often in their own homes, particularly if they were relatives of Maoists. Women
said they were punished for providing food and shelter to the Maoists whose
demands, they said, they could not refuse.

Human Rights Watch researchers also documented a few cases
of rape in Maoist custody, although far less than by security forces.

Meena angered the Maoists because she refused to join their
indoctrination programs. She was abducted in April 2004 while gathering wood in
the jungle. She spent about four months with the Maoists, moving from place to
place with them, and said she was repeatedly raped, including gang-raped,
before she escaped.

The first time I was raped was the day after my capture, in
one of the goatherd huts.…Three of them came into the hut, and
immediately one of them told me to take my clothes off.…They all three
took turns raping me. Afterwards, they told me that I’d be killed if I
dared tell anyone….

Lack of Psycho-Social Support

Even a decade after the conflict, many of the women
interviewed by Human Rights Watch continue to display signs of trauma,
underlining the need for immediate assistance.

The government still does not have a standard protocol for
the treatment and medico-legal examination of rape survivors to provide
therapeutic care and secure any likely medical evidence in a timely manner.
There are also insufficient training programs for doctors on the therapeutic
and medico-legal aspects of sexual assault.

Access to psycho-social support services are not just
important for those who have been raped, but also their immediate family and
community. In some cases, women interviewed censored themselves because they
were afraid of being mistreated or rejected by their husbands and in-laws.
Sita, who was raped by security forces in September 2002, says her husband
often becomes enraged and subjects her to physical violence because of the
attack, even though more than 10 years have passed.

Advocacy Forum has facilitated some medical support when
possible by connecting victims to mental health experts in the capital. But
unless the Nepal government ensures that survivors of sexual assault and their
families can seek counseling through government health services to cope with sexual
assault and its fallout, it will be difficult for individual nongovernmental
efforts to reach out to women systematically and help them to overcome stigma
or prevent domestic violence.

More importantly, the government has an obligation to
provide such services for survivors of sexual assault and their families,
especially where the psycho-social impact deters them from seeking justice. The
government should also expand its efforts to provide interventions to curb
domestic violence, which will also assist rape survivors who experience
domestic violence as a consequence of the rape.

Lack of Medical Treatment and
Documentation

The lack of medical and psycho-social services during the
conflict made it all the more difficult for survivors of rape to secure any
possible medical evidence. For example, one survivor who was raped in February
2003 went to a doctor and reported the rape because she was anxious about HIV
transmission. But the doctor, a private practitioner, did not have the training
to provide her any information about medico-legal evidence, nor did he attempt
to gather such evidence.

Madhavi, who was raped in her village by security forces,
says that initially she was too distressed to look after her injuries and also
had no money. “The soldiers took all the money. How could I go to the
hospital? I also did not want to live,” she said.

While most of the women did not seek medical care, those
that needed treatment for injuries usually did not tell the doctor they were
raped because of fear or stigma. Bipasha’s husband told Human Rights
Watch how terrified they were to report how security forces raped his wife.
“There was so much fear. We did not dare say anything to anyone, police,
doctors, no one…,” he said.

Even in cases where women and girls had medical examinations
soon after the sexual assault, they did not have access to the records, or they
destroyed the file for fear of being caught with it. After the end of the
conflict, it was impossible for women to secure any likely medical evidence of
the sexual assault because of the time that had elapsed.

Barriers to Justice

Even though most women we spoke with described incidents of
sexual violence which occurred at least 10 years ago, survivors told us that
they continue to feel a deep sense of injustice at being left out of reparation
and justice mechanisms.

In their interviews, the women told Human Rights Watch that
a combination of social stigma and the fear of retaliation by the perpetrators
prevented them from reporting these crimes soon after they occurred. Only after
peace was restored did they feel emboldened to come forward and speak about
their experience. It is possible that many others continue to suffer the
consequence of sexual abuse in silence, fearing social stigma or because they
lack faith in the criminal justice system.

Most of the women who spoke to Human Rights Watch said that
it was inconceivable to them to report sexual assault to the police during the
conflict, especially when the combatants were themselves the perpetrators.
“They threatened to kill me if I spoke about the rapes,” said Nirmala,
who was raped by Maoists.

Threats of violence and even death also deterred women from
speaking at the time, and continue to haunt them years later. Radhika, who was
repeatedly raped after she was taken into police custody and illegally detained
for many days, said, “I remember the DSP [District Superintendent of
Police] telling me before release that I wouldn’t live if I dared talk
about what had happened.”

For victims who dare to report the abuse, Nepal’s
criminal justice system also acts as a barrier by imposing a 35-day reporting
limitation rule from the date of the rape. Acknowledging that such a rule
hampers access to justice, the Supreme Court of Nepal ordered the government to
revise the rule, but there has been no progress to date.

The Road Ahead: Justice and Reparations

The time that has passed since the attacks, and the fact
that most women could not lodge complaints at the time, means that the Nepal
government will have to take the initiative, investigate the allegations, and
identify perpetrators to the best of their abilities.

The army, police, and armed police—which shared a
joint command system during “the Emergency,” as the civil war
2001-2005 period is widely known—should cooperate with such an
investigation instead of protecting abusers. Maoists have also been reluctant
to hold perpetrators of human rights violations to account. In two cases that
Human Rights Watch documented, local Maoist leadership did accept the rape
allegations and punished the perpetrators by publicly beating them and forcing
them out of the village. Perpetrators should instead face trial under Nepali
law. The Maoist system of “people’s courts” that prevailed
during the conflict did not provide fair or adequate redress for such crimes.

The procedures adopted by the proposed Truth and Reconciliation
Commission and any investigations and trials should be gender-sensitive and
designed and adequately resourced to protect the privacy and dignity of
survivors to minimize stigma and avoid re-traumatizing them and their families.
It should have resources to order special victim and witness protection
measures should the need arise. The government should also take special
measures to encourage women to report these crimes, such as raising awareness,
and ensuring each police station has female police officers who are properly
trained to handle complaints of sexual assaults. Many victims say that they
fear the perpetrators will be protected.

Nepal’s government should introduce a reparation
program for survivors of conflict-era sexual violence that is not contingent on
successful prosecution and provides compensation and other services to
individuals who come forward with their experiences of sexual violence. It
should also include community-level interventions that address at least three
critical needs of survivors of sexual violence and torture: long-term health
care, mental health services, and livelihood support, especially for those who
have developed disabilities as a result of the violence or torture.

If
the new government is committed to justice for conflict-era abuses, it should
pay immediate attention to assisting those who, for years, are suffering the
consequences of sexual violence that they endured.

Key Recommendations

To the Government of Nepal

Ensure that the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission or any other independent commission is specifically
tasked with a mandate to investigate allegations of conflict-related rape and
other forms of sexual violence.

Develop, in consultation
with local women’s rights groups and women from conflict-affected
communities, a reparations program that meets international standards.

Implement legislative,
policy, and programmatic changes as part of a larger reparative framework to
rectify underlying legal, policy, and programmatic barriers or gaps that
prevented conflict-era rape survivors from seeking justice.

Ensure women’s
participation in the peace process, including in any truth commissions, and
ensure that the commissions comply with international standards.

Methodology

Human Rights Watch conducted
the research for this report in collaboration with Advocacy Forum, a Nepali nongovernmental
organization that specializes in documenting human rights violations and
seeking legal redress.

For several years, Advocacy
Forum has facilitated medical treatment and legal assistance to those affected
by the 1996-2006 conflict in many parts of Nepal. In the course of its work,
Advocacy Forum learned of women’s experiences of different forms of
sexual violence during the conflict.[1]

In April-May 2013, Human
Rights Watch worked with Advocacy Forum to identify women willing to be
interviewed about their experiences of sexual assault during the conflict.
Human Rights Watch researchers conducted interviews with over 50 women. A
combination of immense social stigma attached to sexual assault, fear of
retaliation, and women’s inability to travel to a safe location for
interviews narrowed the pool of women whom Human Rights Watch was able to
interview.

Several women shared their experiences of sexual assault
that occurred when they were still children under the age of 18.

Due to logistical constraints
Human Rights Watch was only able to interview women who lived primarily in the
southern Terai region. Human Rights Watch chose this region because it is home
to indigenous Tharu and other disenfranchised communities which have long been
isolated and ignored by the ruling elite in Kathmandu, and witnessed intensive
anti-Maoist operations during the conflict because Maoists found support there.

Human Rights Watch also chose
districts in the western hill regions where the Maoists held control. We gathered
information in cases where either security forces or Maoist combatants were
identified as perpetrators.

Human Rights Watch findings
in this report are not quantitative, but show that sexual abuse during the conflict may have been common,
and broader documentation is needed once
the state is able to provide adequate witness and victim protection, counseling,
and other support.

In addition to interviews
with women who experienced sexual violence, Human Rights Watch interviewed
family members, doctors and counselors, activists, government officials, and
donors.

Human Rights
Watch interviewed only those women who were willing and able to travel to a
safe location away from their village to meet with researchers. We took
measures to respect the privacy of survivors and conducted interviews in as
private a setting as possible. In five cases the women told Human Rights Watch
that they preferred to have their husband or another support person of their
choice present for a part of or the entire duration of the interview and we
respected their wishes.

All interviews were
conducted with full and informed consent. We also obtained consent to examine
their medical records on file with Advocacy Forum. The interviews were
conducted in Nepali, Hindi, or English, depending on the preference of the
interviewee, using a female interpreter where required. In all cases Human
Rights Watch took steps to minimize re-traumatization of survivors, stopping
interviews if they caused distress. We have also not included in this report
statements from women who appeared uncomfortable or unable to discuss the abuse
that they suffered.

In order to
protect victims and witnesses, individual names and all identifying
information, such as location or incidents, have been modified or withheld.

Terminology and Limitations

In this report, Human Rights
Watch uses the phrase “security forces” to describe police
officers, Armed Police Force (APF), or members of the then Royal Nepal Army, or
a combination of all of these.

Most of the cases that Human
Rights Watch documented occurred after Nepal declared a state of emergency on
November 26, 2001. In earlier cases, the perpetrators were only members of the
Nepal police because the APF or army was not deployed.

After the emergency was
declared, the Royal Nepal Army (now known as the Nepal Army), was deployed to
lead the combat against the Maoists under a policy known as the unified
command. Since the army conducted joint operations with the police and Armed
Police Force, including at night, survivors were often unable to distinguish
between the security forces even though they were able to confirm uniformed
officers.

In some cases women were able
to describe the differences in uniforms worn by police officers and soldiers
using characteristics like color and pattern (that is, whether it was camouflage
or not), and these have been recorded. None of the women were able to
specify the exact battalion or platoon to which the perpetrators belonged.

I. Background: The Armed Conflict

Over 13,000 people were killed during Nepal’s
decade-long civil war between government forces and the Communist Party of
Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M). The signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) put
a formal end to the conflict in 2006. However, both parties have failed to
deliver on their promise to seek justice for victims of human rights violations
including sexual violence, and to end impunity.

Government Acknowledgment of Sexual
Assault during Conflict

In February 2011, nearly five years after the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement was signed, Nepal’s government introduced the National
Action Plan on Implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolutions
1325 and 1820. In this plan, the government acknowledged that “women also
suffered from sexual violence during the conflict as well as the transition
period due to the weak law and order situation.”[2]

The National Action Plan also acknowledges the need to hold
perpetrators accountable for such violence, stating: “There is a need to
take legal action against those involved in different offences during the conflict
period, and improve conflict affected women and children’s access to
justice.”[3]
Describing a justice system that deals with conflict-related sexual violence as
the “need of the day,” the Nepal government committed to
implementing a “gender-sensitive” justice mechanism and recognized
that it is “essential to make necessary amendments in the existing
laws.”[4]

The National Action Plan describes as
“inevitable” the “formulation of laws, policies, and programs
for addressing gender-based violence that took place during the conflict and
the transitional period and their effective implementation.”[5]

However, to date, the Nepal government has yet to take
action to bring about such legal reforms and introduce programs to benefit
survivors of sexual violence from the conflict-era. Programs responding to the
needs of survivors of the conflict—especially women who experienced
gender-based violence—are critical to assisting victims in coping with
the long-term consequences of violence, including chronic pelvic pain,
gynecological and pregnancy complications, migraines and other frequent
headaches, back pain, pre-menstrual syndrome, and gastrointestinal disorders.[6]

Momentum for Law Reform on Sexual
Assault

As the Nepal government has itself recognized, its antiquated
laws governing sexual assault urgently need change.

The Nepali criminal code criminalizes rape, sexual assault,
and sexual harassment of women, and contains provisions making it a crime for
officials to have sexual intercourse with women in certain situations. But
hurdles such as the 35-day statute of limitations on reporting sexual violence
remain in place. A process of drafting a new penal code, criminal procedure
code, and sentencing law has been underway for the past several years, but is
fraught with delays.

Public outcry following the December 2012 rape of Sita Rai[7]
(see below) by a police constable resulted in some momentum for reform of laws
governing sexual assault. The case triggered what is commonly known as the
“Occupy Baluwatar” protests, which lasted over three months. In
response, the government constituted a committee to look into sexual assault
laws and recommend changes, which submitted its report in January 2013.[8]

However, in March 2014, former Home Secretary Navin Kumar
Ghimire told Human Rights Watch that the relevant government departments had
yet to submit recommendations.[9]

Sita Rai and the Momentum for
Reform

When she
was 16, Sita left Nepal to work as a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia. To
bypass a Nepali law that prohibits women below age 30 from migrating out of
the country for work, Sita traveled on a fake passport.

When Sita
returned three years later in December 2012, her fake passport was detected
at the Kathmandu airport. In exchange for dropping charges, the immigration
officer confiscated her savings of 9,500 riyal (2100 US dollars). Offering
assistance to the now penniless woman, police constable Parsuram Basnet
tricked Sita into a nearby lodge, and raped her.[10]

Sita
Rai’s story triggered public outrage. On December 28, 2012, a crowd
assembled in front of then-Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai’s official
Kathmandu residence in Baluwatar, to hand over a letter demanding an
investigation into Sita Rai’s case. The gathering turned into a protest
against the increasing incidences of violence against women and gained
momentum as the Occupy Baluwatar movement.

Representatives
of the movement made several demands of the Nepal government. These included
the arrest of perpetrators of sexual violence with warrants against them,
amending rape laws to drop the 35-day reporting limitation period, lifting
the ban on women under 30 from traveling to work abroad, and ensuring at
least one third representation of women in parliament. In response, Bhattarai
set up a commission of inquiry to look into and implement the
activists’ demands. Several charges were filed against four officers
implicated in her abuse. The Occupy Baluwatar movement went on for 105 days,
gaining support from Nepal’s leading civil society activists, the public,
and the media.

National Law

The Nepali criminal code, the Muluki Ain, criminalizes rape,
sexual assault, and sexual harassment of women, although rape is limited to
penile penetration of the vagina and does not extend to oral, anal, or other
forms of sexual penetration. The law does contain provisions making it a crime
for officials to have sexual intercourse with women in certain situations,
including when in government custody, but does not extend to superior or
command authority liability. The Supreme Court of Nepal has ordered revision of
the law because the 35-day reporting limitation period is
“unreasonable” and “unrealistic,” and is a barrier to
justice for rape survivors.[11]

­Nepal’s Obligations under International
Law

Nepal is a state party to many
international human rights treaties which prohibit sexual violence, including
rape, and torture. These include the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR),[12]
the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment,[13]
the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW),[14]
the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC),[15]
and the Geneva Conventions.[16]

In addition to the instruments mentioned
above, customary international humanitarian law also prohibits sexual violence,
making clear that these prohibitions apply to both sides of a conflict.[17]

The definition of sexual violence that
international law prohibits is broad and has been interpreted through international
jurisprudence to include rape and other forms of sexual violence.[18]
In addition, certain forms of sexual violence during an armed conflict may
constitute torture, and international law does not allow any derogation from
the prohibition against torture.[19]

The UN has, through various security
council resolutions, made clear that there must be national accountability for
crimes of sexual violence and has pledged to support countries in holding
perpetrators to account, particularly through the comprehensive Resolution
2106, adopted in June 2013, which reaffirms prior resolutions and sets out
detailed ongoing concerns and recommendations on how to proceed to address
sexual violence during armed conflict.

In light of its international and national obligations,
Nepal has a duty to reform its criminal laws to recognize all forms of sexual
violence and eliminate the 35-day limitation period that is a barrier to
reporting and investigating sexual offences. In 2011, the CEDAW Committee
(tasked with interpreting and monitoring state party compliance to the treaty)
recommended that the Nepal government “take immediate measures to abolish
the statute of limitation for registration of cases of sexual violence to
ensure women’s effective access to courts for the crime of rape and other
sexual offences.”[20]

Nepal should also incorporate command or
superior responsibility as part of its criminal law for international crimes
including war crimes and torture.[21]
It also has an obligation to independently investigate and prosecute through
civilian courts allegations of sexual violence committed by both sides to the
armed conflict.

The government has an obligation to direct
investigative and prosecutorial authorities to pursue accountability, no matter
how high ranking the alleged perpetrator, and no matter which political party
is in power. Moreover, the government needs to ensure judicial independence and
ensure that its investigative and prosecutorial authorities respond in a timely
and cooperative manner to Supreme Court and other court directives.

Nepal should also make effective reparation
to victims in accordance with the UN Principles and Guidelines on the Right to
a Remedy and Reparation for Victims.[22]
According to these principles, “a person shall be considered a
victim regardless of whether the perpetrator of the violation is identified,
apprehended, prosecuted, or convicted”[23] and the term
“victim” also “includes the immediate family or dependents of
the direct victim and persons who have suffered harm in intervening to assist
victims in distress or to prevent victimization.”[24]

Reparation for serious violations of human
rights, including sexual violence, can take different forms and may include
restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, and guarantees of non-repetition.[25]
While providing reparations, Nepali authorities must also realize the serious
impediments to accessing reparations for particularly disenfranchised groups,
which include women and victims of sexual violence, and ensure that systems are
in place to reach these victims and provide reparation to them. Any reparation
program should be designed in consultation with victims of sexual assault and
be in accordance with the UN Secretary General’s Guidance on Note on
Reparations for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence.[26]

In January 2014, the Nepal Supreme Court
rejected the Truth and Reconciliation Ordinance as unconstitutional, and
directed the government to bring it in line with international law to ensure
that perpetrators of serious human rights and humanitarian law violations are
not subject to an amnesty.[27]
Just three months later, the government responded by submitting and passing
into law a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) bill, which essentially
copies the previous one.[28]

Although rape and serious crimes are
specifically mentioned in the new draft as a crime for which no amnesties are
allowed, the failure to specify what constitutes serious crimes is problematic.
Torture, for example, is not criminalized in Nepali law, and the vagueness of
the draft bill means that perpetrators of torture could be amnestied.

In its concluding recommendations to Nepal,
the CEDAW Committee specifically reiterated the need to ensure that any Truth
and Reconciliation Commission is gender sensitive and “pays attention to
the social and security dimension of public testimony for victims of sexual
violence.”[29]

II.
Sexual Violence by Security Forces

During the conflict, many have described an overall climate
of fear where civilians were caught between Maoist combatants demanding
support, and security forces reacting angrily to any support for Maoists,
coerced or otherwise.

This section provides in-depth accounts of specific episodes
of sexual violence perpetrated by security forces against women and girls. The
nature of sexual assault itself varies and includes molestation, and penile and
other forms of penetrative sexual assault.

Climate of Fear and Sexual Harassment

Almost all women who spoke to Human Rights Watch described
widespread fear of sexual harassment and mistreatment, and said that the
anti-Maoist security force operations in their villages were generally abusive.
In addition to violent raids that included beatings, security force members
made derogatory and sexually humiliating comments while addressing women and
girls, particularly relatives of combatants or those suspected of providing
food or shelter to the Maoists.

Daya recalled that on many occasions, troops would
“kick the door open and say ‘Eh randi (whore), get
up.’”[30]
The raids, which occurred daily and often several times a day, were stressful.
“I had become really thin. I didn’t have proper sleep. I used to be
worried all the time.” Although it did not eventually work, to protect
herself from sexual mistreatment, she said she would pick up her little son in
her arms, hoping it would serve as a deterrent.

Every time they [security forces] came, I used to grab my
four-year-old son and hold him in my arms. It didn’t matter what he was
doing—even if he was sleeping—I’d grab him and wake him up. I
used to think maybe if they saw a child in my arms they would take pity and
wouldn’t touch me.[31]

Jyotsana, who lived with her family, said security forces
would beat villagers, including women—accusing them of supporting the
Maoists.

When they came at night—both army and police would
come and bang on our doors and kick and wake us up. Other times, they would
come walking and surround the village and ambush people who had gone out to go
to the toilet. Even if we went to the cornfields sometimes they would come
catch us and beat us and use filthy language to address us—randi,
beshiya [whore]. They kicked and pulled us by our hair.[32]

Human Rights Watch documented several cases of sexual
assault during interrogations either in police or army custody, or during
police or army visits to the homes of relatives of Maoist suspects or families
suspected of aiding Maoists. There was a striking similarity in cases from the
different districts indicating that sexual assault was used to terrorize and
gather “intelligence” on Maoist movements, or as a form of revenge
for Maoist affiliation.

Rape,
Torture, and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading
Treatment in Detention

Human Rights Watch documented serious cases of torture
including repeated sexual assault of women and girls in police or army custody.
None of them were detained by or in the presence of female police officers, nor
did they see a female police officer during detention. Only one interviewee
told Human Rights Watch that the police framed terrorism charges against her.
But she recalled being produced in court and being allowed access to lawyers
only after spending many months in army custody in different barracks during
her detention period. Family members were not informed of the detention.

In four cases, the women reported that they had been
children under the age of 18 who were studying in school when they were
detained and raped. In all of these cases, Maoists forcibly recruited or
persuaded the children before being captured by security forces.

Gayatri, 2001

Gayatri, a student, had several relatives who were Maoists,
and combatants often used to come to her village for food and shelter, and beat
those who refused to help. In the winter of 2001, a group of Maoists came to
her class and forcibly recruited five students, including Gayatri, who was a
minor at the time, promising to send them back home within two or three days.
When Gayatri protested saying she needed her parents’ permission, the
Maoists warned that they would kill her and her parents if she did not comply,
and forcibly recruited and armed the five students with grenades.[33]

After days of walking through the jungle, Gayatri fell sick
and the Maoists left her and her friends in a village. One day, as she was
bathing under a tap, she was surrounded by security forces. “Suddenly I
felt like there was green everywhere. I looked behind me and everywhere I
looked there was the army,” she said.[34]

Security forces found the grenades, and refused to believe
that Maoists had forcibly recruited Gayatri and the other students. After
blindfolding and binding their hands, they took her and her friends into
custody.

Gayatri was first threatened with rape when she was detained
overnight at a makeshift camp, where her blindfold was temporarily removed.
“They [security force members] just talked badly to us. They said,
‘You are bad people. The Maoists must have raped you. We’ll also
rape you and leave you.’” The next day, security forces transferred
Gayatri and her friends to an army camp where they were separated. Gayatri did
not see her friends again.

The rapes began from the first day. She was still
blindfolded. The first time the man who came in to take away her dinner plate
raped her. Soon it became a pattern. Men entered her room on some pretext or
the other—of giving her food, water, clearing the dishes, or taking her
to the toilet—and raped her. During the days she was interrogated and
beaten and at night she was raped. Gayatri also described how she was forced to
provide oral sex or masturbate the men.

The rapes continued for many days. I was blindfolded
throughout. My hands were untied after the first few days. There were around
five or six officers every night.[35]

If Gayatri protested, they kicked and beat her. On one
occasion she screamed and the man who was in the room hit her on the forehead
with a rifle butt, leaving a scar, still visible, on her forehead. They
threatened to kill her and her parents if she told anyone about the rapes.

Gayatri estimates that she was detained there for about 25
days and that she was raped for 12-15 of those days. She began to have heavy
vaginal bleeding because of the rapes and described how she used her petticoat
to absorb blood, washing it every day when she was allowed to use the toilet.
She also told Human Rights Watch that the room where she was detained was dirty
and smelled of dried blood.

After seeing her plight, one of the officers in the army
camp organized her release. She gave him her aunt’s number who came to
take her home. The first time her aunt came, the army officer told her to
return with a set of clothes for Gayatri. Before she left the army camp,
Gayatri was told to throw away the clothes she was wearing, put on the fresh
set of clothes.

After her release, Gayatri confided in her aunt who took her
to a hospital for medical treatment and an HIV test, which was negative. They
destroyed the records because they did not want anyone else to find out.
Because she was blindfolded for a longtime, Gayatri felt it caused her problems
with her eyesight soon after her release, lasting over a month. “My eyes
tear a lot. I used to have severe pain when I opened and closed my eyes. I got
headaches.” The beatings during her detention weakened her back, making
it difficult for her to work, she said. She continues to have nightmares.

Gayatri has since married. She wants justice but she is too
scared to report the case because she does not want her in-laws and husband to
find out.

Diksha and Basanti, 1999

During the conflict, Diksha lived with her family. Her
father was a Maoist and was not living with the family. She said the police
with “plain blue dress without patterns” started coming to their
house to inquire about his whereabouts but the family had not seen or heard
from him. She recalled that groups of 10 or 12 police officers turned up
frequently at any time of day or night.

In November 1999, when Diksha was still a minor, a group of
what seemed like 24-25 police officers arrived at her house in the morning when
she was cooking. There were no women police officers in the group. They started
interrogating everyone about Maoist whereabouts and beat her, her brothers, and
her mother. “They kept asking us about Maoists and beat us,” she
said.[36]

The police blindfolded her and her mother and took them to
the police station, kicking, beating, and pulling their hair en route.
“They threatened that they would kill us. They kept calling us ‘Randi,
raadi, wives of Maoists,’” said Diksha.

They reached the police station after sunset. She was
separated from her mother and taken to a room that she later learned was where
the police inspector slept. The police officers interrogated and tortured her
in the room.

In the room, they handcuffed me and shackled my legs. I was
sitting on the floor when a drunk officer entered and started shouting at me
using filthy language. He started beating me with a stick, all over. I
was leaning against a wall and sitting with my legs outstretched. He stepped on
my knees and started beating me on the soles of my feet with a stick.[37]

After beating her, the police officers raped her, she said.
She recalled that there were several men in the room and they together
overpowered her: “I heard about three or four men in the room. One
officer stepped on my legs, another held down my hands, someone closed my
mouth.…” She said one of them proceeded to rape her with what she
felt was a stick.[38]

Diksha told Human Rights Watch she fell unconscious and
could not recollect other details. She woke up to find herself handcuffed to a
pillar; her body was swollen, and her clothes torn. She needed to go to the
toilet, but could barely walk because of severe pain. In the end, the policemen
had to help her walk to the toilet downstairs. She found it difficult to pass
urine. She recalled that she was bleeding and there were blood clots in her
urine.

For a little more than two weeks, Diksha says she was kept
in detention and beaten. She recalled being raped at least on three separate
occasions. On the third occasion she said she was not blindfolded when raped
and saw that it was the “inspector” who raped her. She could smell
the alcohol on his breath and guessed it might have been the same man who was
involved in the previous rapes because the alcohol breath seemed familiar. She
was not produced in court or allowed contact with any relatives while she was
in detention.

Human Rights Watch spoke to Basanti, Diksha’s mother,
who was also detained in the police station and released with her daughter. Basanti
said she was beaten, including with nettles. She showed scars from the beatings
on her left shin and her arm where she was hit with a rifle butt. Basanti said
she was also blindfolded and raped with an object that she thought was a stick.
She felt a surge of intense pain and passed out. “When I regained
consciousness at night I found that my legs and groin area were swollen and I
had bruises,” she said.[39]
Basanti was beaten so badly that she developed severe back pain and for a while
lost all sensation in one of her toes.

She and her daughter were released after more than two weeks
in police custody on the condition that they report at the police station every
day. After they were released, they feared being killed and joined the Maoists
for protection. They went to hospitals for medical treatment, but lost their
medical documentation in another village raid by security forces.[40]

Shakti, 2003

Shakti was a minor in secondary school when members of the
Maoist party came to her school to recruit students. She became a combatant and
was a member of the district squad and platoon for about nine or ten months,
and then mostly engaged in spying for about a year before the Nepal Army
captured her.[41]

In 2003, she and another combatant had sheltered in a
village, in a civilian’s house, when she said soldiers arrived at night
and beat the house owners for sheltering Maoists. Shakti had a pipe bomb with
her, which gave her away. The soldiers blindfolded and tied her hands, and hit
her with the rifle butt. Because of her work as a Maoist combatant, Shakti was
able to clearly identify that those who took her into custody were from the
army.

She recollected regaining consciousness and discovering that
she was almost buried under the soil. “I found that my entire body was
under the soil. They had dug up the ground and buried me, and my face was above
the ground,” she said.[42]

When they saw her conscious, they pulled her out of the
soil, covered her mouth, and poured water into her nose. Soldiers kicked her all
over, including on her chest and vagina. They threatened her with forced oral
sex. Shakti was blindfolded and did not know how many officers were there but
estimated there might have been five or six around her.

The next episode of torture she recalled occurred about six
months later, during her detention in the barracks where she said she was
routinely interrogated about Maoist leaders and their whereabouts.

Describing the torture she suffered blindfolded, Shakti
said: “My legs were lifted and tied and my hands were tied too—it
was like a V-shape and I could feel something sharp poking my back.” They
passed electric currents through her feet twice a day on many days, once in the
morning and at night. They beat her regularly. Shakti estimated that this
carried on for two or three months.

During her detention in the barracks, which she estimated
lasted about 10 months, Shakti could not recall any specific episode of sexual
assault but said she had difficulty passing urine and felt a burning sensation.
She could feel that all her clothes were torn. “Everyone could see me
naked—everything would show,” she said. They would not even untie
her hands when she wanted to use the toilet and she could not clean herself.
She recalled how humiliated and dirty she felt, “I felt like I was a
pig.”[43]

From the barracks, Shakti was sent to two other detention
centres. In the second one, she was housed with other female Maoist combatants.
She believed a handful of the female combatants there were raped. Shakti said:

There were about 45 of us—we used to cook and live
together so I knew how many of us were there in the center. Of the 45 women I
think about 10-15 of them were sexually assaulted. I am sure that at least five
of those women were definitely raped by the army. When we used to sit down and
chat they wouldn’t say it directly but they would say other things that
made it clear that they were raped. One woman, for example, told us that 11-12
men came and took her and that she bled a lot after those days.[44]

Terrorism charges were framed against her, but she was
released once the peace agreement was signed.

Shakti narrated how her health suffered because of the
months’ long torture. “The soles of my feet hurt like they were
pus-filled—I can’t describe the pain—it was because of the
electric shocks.”[45]
The continued suspension during custody weakened her upper body so much, she
said, that she could not even carry and breastfeed her children. She is unable
to work and relies on her parents’ support.

Radhika, 1998

Radhika said that the Maoists came regularly to her village
and often asked her to join their programs, but she refused. In November 1998,
when she was still a minor, Radhika was walking to school in a group of around
15 students when they ran into security forces. She said, “Suddenly we
came upon a group of men in black camouflage uniform. They told us that we had
to come with them to the police station.”

At the police station, everyone else was released but
Radhika and two other girls. All three of them were detained together in a
large hall, and were taken out to be questioned individually. Radhika says she
was beaten during interrogation.

During the questioning, I was beaten and questioned about
Maoist movements, about whether I had attended Maoist programs. There had been
a Maoist procession earlier that day, so they thought that we had something to
do with that. I was beaten very badly…. They kicked me against the cement
wall and forced my head against it. I remember that blood started streaming
down from my head and I collapsed on the floor. The first time they questioned
me they put pins under my nails.[46]

On the third day, all three girls were first shifted to
another police station and then transferred to the District Police Office,
where Radhika was dragged into the office of the deputy superintendent of
police (DSP). She said:

I resisted going, so the police officer dragged me to the
office of the DSP, kicked and pushed me very violently, and threw me at the
feet of the DSP. The policeman then left the room. I was alone with the DSP. I
know he was the DSP because he told me so.[47]

The DSP spoke to her in a derogatory way, making unwelcome
sexual comments. Radhika recalled, the “DSP started by saying things like
‘Oh, this is a pretty one, come close to me,’ and he was using
dirty words.” Soon he told her to take off her clothes and when she
refused, he hurled verbal insults at her, and slapped, stripped, and raped her.[48]

Radhika said this continued for about a week. She was taken
for “questioning” every day where the DSP raped Radhika each time
barring one occasion where another official was involved. Describing these
episodes of sexual assault, Radhika said:

Each time except once, I was raped by the DSP. The one
exception was when an “inspector” raped me. I was beaten and kicked
each time. During some of the rapes, the DSP would call some policemen in to
hold me down and cut me on my thighs.[49]

She recounted how they tortured her further by applying
chili and salt powder on her cuts and in her vagina. She said, “It used
to burn very badly. I remember they kept saying this is what happens to
Maoists. They put pins in my nails, both on hands and feet. My finger nails
fell off afterwards, I suppose because of the pins.”[50]

After about a week her cousin found out where Radhika was
being held and met the DSP asking for Radhika’s release. Although the DSP
insisted that he had full records on her Maoist activities, Radhika was
released on parole on the condition that she should report to the police
station every three days. Before her release, DSP warned her: “I remember
the DSP telling me before release that I wouldn’t live if I dared talk
about what had happened.”

Radhika could barely walk after she was released and her
family took her to hospital where they admitted her for two weeks during which
period the doctors sent notes every three days to the police station. After she
returned from the hospital she continued to report at the police station every
three days. Once again she got a veiled threat of torture and rape:
“Eventually, the police started telling me that I should get married
immediately or else the same thing would happen to me all over again.”[51]

Radhika left the district and married a year later. Until
now she has not disclosed the torture or rape to her husband and in-laws. It
has been nearly 15 years after the incident but she said she still suffers
because of it, complaining that she cannot eat properly, bleeds heavily during
her menstrual cycles, and experiences a “tingling burning kind of pain in
my head” where she was hit.[52]

Jyotsana, 1996

Jyotsana lived with her family in Udayapur district during
the conflict and said there were constant search operations by security forces.
When she was 12, Jyotsana decided to join the Maoists because she felt they
were more respectful and helpful than the security forces. The Maoists met the
villagers, organized programs in schools, and promised that there would be
food, dancing, and singing, she explained.[53]

Drawn by their promises, she and a cousin joined the
Maoists. However, after four or five months, Jyotsana decided to leave because
she could no longer endure the long treks in jungles or the lack of food. The
Maoists allowed her to leave with a warning not to disclose names or hideouts.
But the villagers refused to let her stay, fearing that her association with
the Maoists could cause trouble with security forces.

Jytosana told Human Rights Watch that she suspected that
while she was trying to find shelter in one of the villages a police informer
gave her away, leading to her capture and detention. She gave a vivid
description of her capture—she was hiding under the bed on the first
floor of the house and she heard the security forces downstairs
“searching and throwing things.” They came upstairs and found her
under the bed:

I heard one of the officers loading a rifle and then
another one told him not to shoot me. So the officer pointing the gun at me
asked me to come out. As soon as I came out, they started hitting me with the
butt of the rifle—they hit me on my face, head, back, and kicked me with
their boots. They were wearing a uniform similar to what the armed police force
now wears.[54]

Jyotsana told Human Rights Watch that she was dragged away
and taken to another villager’s house some distance away, possibly an
illegal makeshift detention center. She was detained there for two days and
beaten. She was also threatened with rape:

‘Randi, you’ve been with Maoists and had
sex with them. Now you can have sex with us. If you can give it to them, you
can give it to us also.’ They used to say dirty things like this and beat
me. Or they would hold my hands and say, ‘These are the hands that have
used Maoist rifles.’[55]

Jyotsana was moved from the village-house where she was
detained and transferred to various police stations where she was periodically
beaten and interrogated. During one such transfer she was molested by a police
officer who was accompanying her:

On the way one police officer touched both my breasts and
asked me, ‘How do you like this?’ The other officers were watching
and laughing. I got angry and said, ‘How would your sisters feel if you
did that? That’s how I feel.’ When I said that they got angry with
me. But he didn’t do it again.[56]

After spending months in police custody, Jyotsana was
eventually released.

Rape
and Sexual Assault during Search Operations in Villages

Villagers often suffered harsh questioning, beatings, and
other abuses during search operations. However, families of suspected Maoist
combatants or those suspected of assisting them were particularly at risk.

This section describes cases of women family members of
Maoist suspects who suffered torture. It also includes cases of sexual abuse
during search operations, including of women from families suspected of aiding
Maoists. The case studies below show the nature and circumstances of sexual
assault that women experienced during search operations.

Madhavi, 2004

Madhavi lived with her husband, his brother, and her
brother’s wife during the conflict. The Maoists used to come to their
home often, demanding food and shelter. In August 2004, some Maoists came to
their house and asked them to keep a suitcase for them. “They said they
would take it soon. We said, ‘We are scared of the army.’ But
Maoists said nothing will happen,” Madhavi said.[57]

A few days later, at around 8 a.m., troops surrounded the
house. Madhavi told Human Rights Watch that she was not aware that her husband
and his brother were Maoist supporters. She was taken aback when her husband
produced a gun that he had hidden away. “The soldiers were beating us.
Finally my husband showed them the gun he had hidden inside the cowshed,”
she said. They beat them and asked for more weapons but did not find any. She
recalled, “One of the soldiers said, ‘She has lied. She is a Maoist
as well.’”[58]

They separated Madhavi from her husband and dragged her into
a cowshed. Describing what happened, she said:

They kicked me as if I was a football from here to there.
When the first person raped me, I was conscious. But there were four or five
people inside the shed, and I don’t know how many others raped me. I was
unconscious…. I remember one person that raped me. He looked like a
demon. I was told that he is a major. [59]

When she recovered some time later she found herself lying
in the shed. Her clothes were torn, and she was covered in cow dung. She was
swollen and bruised and had difficulty walking, she told Human Rights Watch,
describing how she struggled to walk back home from the shed.

The soldiers had left, and had taken away her husband and
brother-in-law. The family was anxious and frightened about their
disappearance. Within a few days, with the help of villagers, they found the
two men’s dead bodies and buried them. [60]

When news of the two deaths spread, some human rights
activists visited the family, and they took Madhavi to the police station to
file a police complaint regarding the killings. She did not mention her rape.
“How could I say anything to them? The police said we were
Maoists.” The activists also took Madhavi to a hospital first in a nearby
city, and then to Kathmandu. She says she had rib and back injuries from the
beating. Her three-year-old son, who was also traumatized by the violence, also
received treatment, she said.

Madhavi told Human Rights Watch that she still felt the
damage that was done to her body. “I have pain in my body. Heavy lifting
is painful.” Madhavi also wanted “punishment for those
people” and “compensation.”[61]

Meera, 2003

During the conflict, Meera said that there were heavy
security patrols in the district where she lived. Meera told Human Rights Watch
that Maoists used to come and ask for food, or for shelter. “We were
stuck in between. If the Maoists said to ‘give food’ and we refused
they were angry. But if we helped the Maoists, the army was angry.”[62]

In August 2003, security forces arrived in the morning, the
day after Maoists had stayed in her house and left. At the time the forces
came, her husband had left for work and she was alone with her six-month-old
daughter. “The men surrounded the house and started inquiring about the
Maoists. “Do you have Maoists in your home? Did you give food to
them?” she said, describing how they questioned her.[63] When
she denied having assisted the Maoists and went inside the house to feed her
six-month-old child, four members of the security forces followed her inside.

One of them snatched the baby from her breast and threw her
to one side, hurting and leaving the baby wailing. They continued to question
her about the Maoists, and started beating her. Recalling how they forced her
on to the bed and threatened to kill her, Meera said:

Then they threw me on the bed. I cried and shouted. When I
cried, they kicked me in the face. They threatened to kill my daughter and to
kill me.… One after another they raped me.[64]

Meera says she became unconscious. When she regained consciousness,
she did not see the men around. She saw that she had “welts on the back
from the beatings” and cuts on her lips and cheeks. “I could not
even get up,” she said describing the agony she was in. Neighbors came
and found her in that state some time later.

The rapes left her traumatized and shocked. “I could
not eat. I was just lying there,” she said. When her husband returned
from work that evening, he learned from her neighbors what had happened.
“He felt helpless and started crying,” Meera said.

The following day, a neighbor took her for a health check
but she did not tell the doctor about the rape. Meera could not do anything for
three months after she was raped. She was unable get up. The neighbors cooked
for the family and took care of the baby. After three months, when she went
back to the doctor, she learned that she was pregnant:

I knew that it could not be my husband’s child since
I had been sick before the security forces came. So I knew that the child was
because of the rape, of those officers who raped me. I couldn’t even
abort the child since my health condition was so poor. My husband also said not
to abort the child.[65]

Meera has a daughter from the rape, and had two sons after
that. While there was no trouble with her pregnancies, she says that her health
condition is not good.[66]
She wants financial assistance.

Parvati, 2003

Parvati lived with her husband and children during the
conflict. Many people from the area had joined the Maoists who used to
routinely seek food and shelter from the villagers. During 2001-2002, Parvati
says that civilians were routinely targeted during intensive security
operations in the area.

One day in February 2003, security forces arrived at her
house when Parvati’s husband had gone to the market and she was alone at
home with the children. She was inside cooking, while the children were
outside. Security forces came inside and started questioning her about Maoist
whereabouts and searching her house.[67]

[O]ne of the men grabbed me by the neck and dragged me to
the corner of a room. The other two were outside. He ordered me to take off my
clothes. I refused. ‘Why should I take off my clothes?’ He had a gun
over his shoulder. He said, ‘I will kill you.’ He then pushed me
against the wall…. then he raped me.[68]

He then warned her against telling anyone of the rape.
Parvati says that she remained inside the house while the man went outside and
joined the search operation. When her husband returned, Parvati told him and a
neighbor. The neighbor took her to a medical center and told the doctor she was
raped but he gave her medication without examining her, she said. Parvati wants
justice and compensation for what was done to her.

Daya, 2003

Daya is one of her husband’s two wives. Both wives
lived in the same house with the parents-in-law and the husband’s brother
and his family. One a night in January 2003, when security forces arrived on a
search operation, Daya’s husband was with the other wife in a different
room. Daya was asleep and her little son was with her. Security forces woke her
up:

It was dark. The men shone a torch at me. I woke because of
the light. I could not see anything. For a second I thought it was my husband.
But there were two people inside my room, and they were in boots and uniforms.
They pulled the blanket off me. It was cold and my baby started crying….
One of the men had gone into the adjoining kitchen. He said, ‘Why do you
have so many utensils. Are you cooking for the Maoists?’ I said we were a
big family…. Then they started forcing me. I can’t describe what
they did. They did so many things. I lost my mind. It is a matter of
shame…. After the first one raped me, I tried to snatch the blanket back,
but the second one pulled it away. He raped me too.[69]

Daya told Human Rights Watch that when she told her husband
what happened he was angry. He asked why the other women in the house had not
been raped, considering that the security forces had searched the entire house.
He called her a prostitute. But the other relatives pointed out that only she
was alone that night. The rest had their husbands in the room when security men
started their search.

Daya said she went to the local primary health care center,
where she did not say anything about the rape because she was ashamed and got
some medication for stomach pain. Daya, at a minimum, wants compensation. She
says her husband no longer takes care of her since the rape.

Sita, 2002

According to Sita, in mid-September 2002, there was a big
security operation in her village. The area was cordoned off. Villagers
reported gunfights between Maoists and security forces.

Security forces came to their village often, interrogating
and warning them not to assist Maoists. “They said, ‘You give food
to the Maoists and shelter.’ Every day they used to ask us about the
Maoists. They would tell us not to help the Maoists,” she said recounting
how relentless the questioning was. She also recalled the threats they received
from the security forces: “‘If we find out that you have provided
support we will kill you.’”[70]

Sita described one such visit by security forces. They
arrived when the rest of the household was asleep but she had woken up very
early. While the others were outside, two men came into the house to question
her. That morning, the interrogation irritated her and she retaliated:
“Maoists come in the night. If we don’t give them food and lodging,
they shout at us, threaten us. What do you want us to do?”

Angered by her response the security forces started using
derogatory language, pushed her on the floor, and started beating her. Then,
while one of the men stood guard, the other raped her. She says she thought
that her attacker was the senior officer, because he ordered the other man to
wait.

He pushed me on the floor. He beat me. And then he raped
me. The other officer was outside the door. After he raped me, both of them
went away. I was very scared.[71]

After they left, she asked her husband why he had not come
out of his room to help her. He expressed his helplessness because he was
threatened: “There was a man standing at the door and he threatened to
kill me.”[72]

Sita and her husband did not file a police complaint. They
were too frightened. She says she cannot forgive her husband for not trying to
come to her rescue, and they often fight.

Asha, 2002

The village where Asha lived during the conflict was a
Maoist stronghold, which witnessed intensive security force operations.
According to Asha, initially the local police used to patrol the area. But
because Maoists had bombed the police station, the Nepal army was deployed,
conducting joint operations with the police. Asha’s brother-in-law was a
Maoist and security forces targeted the family for questioning.

Asha’s husband, who also spoke to Human Rights Watch,
said he suspected that the village informer tipped off the security forces,
leading to repeated visits to their house for interrogations about his Maoist
brother. Asha and her son were alone one night in September 2002 when her
husband was away to meet a sick relative.

They came late at night and knocked on my door. I woke up.
They ordered me to open the door and said they would otherwise break down the
door. I opened the door, and one officer came inside. When he saw I was alone,
he took my hand, pulled me to the bed and made me lie down. He threatened that
if I shouted, he would kill me. I tried to escape but failed. He was stronger.
He raped me. Before he left, he warned me, told me not to tell anyone. I was
very scared…. I could not sleep. I went to my neighbor’s house. I
did not say anything about the incident.[73]

Asha told her husband the next morning. He told Human Rights
Watch that he took his wife to a doctor immediately because he worried that she
might get pregnant. They informed the doctor she was raped and got some
medication.

Asha and her husband are skeptical about justice because she
said it would be difficult for her to single out the rapist; it was a big
operation and soldiers had arrived in six or seven vehicles the day she was
attacked. But even if she could not get justice, at a minimum she wants
compensation.

Bipasha, 2002

Bipasha was visiting her in-laws in a different village for
four or five days in September 2002. Her brother-in-law (husband’s
brother) had joined the Maoists and the security forces often interrogated the
in-laws about his whereabouts.

She recounted how the security forces came to her in-laws’
house many times. On one day in September 2002, they came early in the morning
when the family was asleep: “They just barged in. We were frightened.
They looked everywhere, and then they went away.”[74]

They returned at around 7 a.m. the same day when the family
was awake, asked her parents-in-law questions about their Maoist son, and
started questioning and threatening them. Bipasha recalled them saying: “‘Where
is your son? You have to bring him here. Why did he join the Maoists? If you
don’t bring him, we will kill you.’”

When her parents-in-law explained that their son had joined
the Maoists against their wishes and they did not know where he was, security
forces beat her family members and left. But they returned again at around 9
a.m. when Bipasha was alone with her baby and parents-in-law. They asked
Bipasha to produce a photo of her brother-in-law. When she told them she did
not live there and did not have a photo, they dragged her inside.

[T]hey took me inside and asked me to open the box where we
store our clothes. Some of them dragged the box outside. The others started
beating me inside. They were kicking me, hitting me, pulling my hair….
Then they pushed me down on the floor.

She described how they proceeded to rape her:

They were holding me down and yelling at me. There were
many of them. They were raping me. At some point I must have lost
consciousness.[75]

When she regained consciousness she found that the security
forces were still there:

I was in great pain.... And then I soiled my clothes.
One of the men said, ‘Let’s go. She might die.’ ….My
mother-in-law was crying, saying, ‘Don’t do this. She has a small
child.’ But the men shouted abuses at her.[76]

Bipasha said she was covered in bruises and cuts, had heavy
vaginal bleeding, and was unable to walk. One of her brothers-in law took her
to a doctor where she was given medicine. Her in-laws sent word to her husband
who used to work in another part of the country. He came to fetch her after
four or five days and took her back home and cared for her. Her husband, who
also spoke to Human Rights Watch, said he took her to a hospital but they were
too scared to report the rape.

More than 10 years after the incident, Bipasha felt she was
yet to fully recover, underscoring the importance of psycho-social and other
support for survivors of rape.[77]
Both Bipasha and her husband told Human Rights Watch they want compensation and
the perpetrators to be punished.

Manorama, 2002

Manorama said she was alone with her baby son and her
nine-year-old sister-in-law, when the security forces arrived on a search
operation in October 2002 in the village where she lived. Her baby was only 11
days old, so she was still at home recovering from childbirth while her husband
and her other in-laws worked in the field.

She was bathing at a hand pump when seven or eight armed men
in military uniform asked about her family. She explained that everyone had
gone to the field. Some of the men went inside to check. Her sister-in-law saw
them, was frightened, and fled. Manorama explained that the security forces
were often rude and aggressive during search operations, and the local people
were afraid of them. When the security forces did not find anyone else, they
left to continue their search operations.

A little while later two members of the same group who had
visited their house earlier returned. Manorama described what happened:

I had finished my bath but was still at the pump. They
ordered me to go into the house. They said ‘Show us Maoist hiding inside
the house.’ I said, ‘We don’t have any Maoists.’ They
beat me on my legs with a stick. Then they dragged me into the house. They
pulled my hair and threw me on the ground.[78]

After dragging her inside the house, “One of them
stood guard at the door while the other did something that he should not have
done,” she said alluding to the first rape. “Then the other one, he
raped me as well,” she said.[79]

They threatened her: “‘Don’t tell anyone.
Otherwise we will hit you again.’” Manorama was scared and did not
want to stay home alone. She was also in pain she says, because she was still
tender after the recent childbirth. She went to the fields with her baby and
told her husband about the rape.

Manorama and her husband decided not to tell anyone. She
decided to speak out only after the peace agreement. Since then the villagers
have guessed that she might have been raped because she has attended various
meetings conducted by Advocacy Forum and have started gossiping about her. Her
husband is displeased, especially because she has spoken about what happened to
her to no avail—no one has been punished and she has not received
compensation.

Human Rights Watch spoke to Manorama’s husband who
believed that the soldiers had come from the nearby barracks, and were
accompanied by some police.[80]

Radha, 2002

Radha remembers that it was about 7 p.m. on a night in
mid-December 2002 when security forces arrived on a search operation in her
village. They were all in camouflage uniforms and were carrying weapons. She
was outside her hut in the courtyard. As three men approached her, Radha
started running toward her neighbors’ house to escape them. She says she
was scared because she knew that security forces beat people during search
operations. However, they caught up with her and ordered her inside her house.
After Radha responded sharply to them that she hadn’t done anything
wrong, the security personnel started pushing her around. She retaliated: “I
said, ‘You have no authority to touch me.’” But two of them
dragged her inside the house while one stood outside. She said:

Two men came inside. They pushed me down on the ground, and
pointed a gun at me. I struggled but there were two of them… They held me
down and both raped me. Then they went outside. They were laughing. I ran after
them. I saw my husband outside and I shouted to him, ‘These men have
raped me.’ [81]

Radha’s husband told Human Rights Watch that he
hurried from the fields when he saw the security forces. He saw two men come
out of his house, and then his wife came out too. She was crying and she told
him that she had been raped.

He said that the security forces had come on a search
operation, but one of their jeeps was bogged in mud, so they wanted a tractor
to help them retrieve it. After his wife told him of the attack, he chased the
men, who had climbed into the tractor. “I ran up to the tractor. The
owner, who was driving the tractor knew me so he stopped,” he said. He
said he tried to confront the attackers. But the security forces threatened
him: “‘Get down, or we will kill you.’” The owner also
asked him to leave saying he would be killed. “I was frightened for my
life. They had guns,” the husband explained why he had to retreat.[82]

Both of them complained to the Village Development
Committee, the administrative authorities, and the Local Peace Committee, set
up to identify cases eligible for interim compensation after the conflict, but
none of these authorities assisted them. They want justice and compensation.

Anita, 2002

During the conflict, Anita lived with her husband and
parents-in-law. On the day of the incident in September 2002, the security forces
came early in the morning. Anita was still in her room, while her husband had
taken their cattle for grazing and her parents-in-law were in the market. One
man entered her room while the others waited outside.

I was getting ready to get up.… I had to start the
cooking. I heard noises and then there was a man in the room. He was in
uniform. I tried to get up, but he stopped me. He was holding me down. He had a
gun, which he then put next to the bed. He said ‘Don’t shout or I
will shoot.’ He held me down forcefully and raped me. While he was raping
me, there was a whistle from outside. There were other soldiers and they
started leaving and saying, ‘Come on. Hurry up.’ So he hurried out.[83]

Human Rights Watch spoke to Anita’s husband who said
that as he was returning from the field with the cattle he saw the security
forces at his house on a search operation. They refused to let him enter his
house, and beat him with the butts of their rifles. The security forces
signaled the end of the search by sounding a whistle and he saw some of them
exit his house. “When they blew the whistle four or five security force
personnel came out of the house. Then they started calling out. Then this other
man came out,” he said explaining how one more man followed the others, lagging
behind. He believed that they were a joint team from the nearby army camp and
local police.[84]

Both Anita and her husband believe that the whistle
indicating the end of the search and summoning the security back possibly saved
her from gang rape. Anita’s husband is angry, helpless, and scared for
their lives, and he said that making a complaint about the rape was
inconceivable because they were petrified of security forces at that time.

The husband told Human Rights Watch he felt his wife has not
yet recovered physically and mentally from the trauma of rape. Anita had a
daughter within a year of the rape. “Sometimes I wonder if she is because
of the rape. But my husband loves her, and we believe she is our
daughter.”[85]

Shona, 2002

Shona lived with her husband and two sons during the
conflict. When the security forces intensified their operations against the
Maoists, many of the men from the village ran away. Shona’s husband went
to India.

At the beginning of her interview, Shona preferred to have her
husband speak about what happened to her and Human Rights Watch spoke to him in
Shona’s presence. According to information that her husband gathered from
Shona and other villagers after he returned from India, the Maoists used to
come often to their house and Shona used to give them food. He believes that a
village informer saw a Maoist coming out of their house and alerted the
security forces. In February 2002, police came to their home, accused Shona of
being a Maoist, and took her into custody. They also took their 11-year-old son
and detained him for four days, slapping and interrogating him about Maoist
whereabouts.[86]

Shona remembered her detention and volunteered information
about it.

That day the police came and took me away in a van. I was
kept in a filthy room at the police station. I begged that they let me out of
the dirty place. But they refused. For a month-and-a-half, they kept me there.
I was beaten so badly, I had welts and bruises. I was also beaten with nettles.
They used to keep me tied up. They used to say, ‘Are you a Maoist?’
or ‘Your husband is a Maoist.’ Sometimes they said, ‘If you
tell us about Maoists, we will not do anything to you.’[87]

She told Human Rights Watch that even after she was she was
allowed to go home, the “inspector” came home and raped her. She
said:

For two months after that, he used to come to our house
late at night. ‘Open the door, Maoist,’ he used to say and bang the
door with his stick. Even if I did not open the door, he used to kick and come
inside. I was alone. The children used to run away as soon as the police came.
He used to come to my house. He used to rape me.[88]

According to her husband who was in India at that time, he
only heard about the arrest and rape much later. Someone from the village met him
in India and told him that his wife had been tortured, and that she was
mentally disturbed. Shona has physically recovered since, but her husband says
she remains distracted and prone to rages. They want justice and tried
registering complaints at the police station after the 2006 peace agreement,
but were turned away: “The [police] officer said that nothing can be
done,” said Shona’s husband, describing his futile efforts at
trying to file a criminal complaint. They also want compensation.

Mamta, 2001

Mamta, a widow, lived with her 10-year-old son and her
husband’s family, including his parents and brother. Her husband’s
sister had joined the Maoists and did not live with them. Mamta told Human
Rights Watch the security forces often came to question the family about her
whereabouts.

In October 2001, government forces turned up at their house
around midnight when the family was asleep. She and her son were asleep in
their room. The family rooms were built around a common courtyard and she says
she could hear family members were being questioned in the other rooms as
troops started searching the house, turning it upside down. Three of them came
into her room to interrogate her. They asked her if she was feeding the
Maoists. Then, she says: “They put the nozzle of a gun in my mouth and
asked me, “‘Where is your sister-in-law? Call her back to the
house.’”[89]

She described how the violence progressively
worsened—they pushed her down on the straw mat on the floor and proceeded
to rape her:

One after another, they raped me. Two were holding my hands
and legs and they took turns. One of them was young and quite thin. The other
was slightly fat. I was so scared I don’t remember seeing much, I
couldn’t recognize them. After that, they went away. I was bleeding and
my hands and legs were feeling very weak.[90]

The rape left her in a state of shock, she said. Her young
son had witnessed the rape. “He was crying a lot, and had been slapped a
few times by the men. I just wanted to be sure he is alright.”

She says she was too ashamed to tell her in-laws about the
rape. They used to get angry because she was not able to work. “I
didn’t want to get up, I didn’t want to work. I didn’t go to
a doctor.” She eventually moved out with her son, and now lives
separately, but says she still suffers because of the rape. “I
don’t know what to do. I get angry and I cry.”

She told Human Rights Watch that she wanted to file a police
complaint at that time but didn’t because she did not know how to write.
She also wants compensation.[91]

Nandita, 2001

Nandita lived with her husband, daughter, parents-in-law and
sister-in-law during the conflict. She told Human Rights Watch that constant
abuse and beatings by the security forces during anti-Maoist combing operations
led her husband to join the Maoists in September 2001. His joining the Maoists
caused them more problems—security forces often came to their doorstep,
interrogating and harassing them.

Nandita told Human Rights Watch that one night in December
2001 the security forces came in search of her husband when the family was
asleep. She was woken by a torch shining in her face, and her mother-in-law
beside her. There were so many of them that “three rooms…were
filled with security forces.” The security forces took her and her
mother-in-law to a room and beat them both before separating them. They took
Nandita to the adjoining room from where she could see her mother-in-law being
beaten up. She herself was beaten, threatened, and interrogated about her
husband’s whereabouts.[92]

Nandita recounted that there were four men in the beginning
who were beating her:

I had long hair and they grabbed me and dragged me around.
Then they threw me on the ground and kicked me. I saw that my earring was stuck
on the boot of one of the men when he kicked me in the head….They started
tearing off my clothes, even my inner garments. [93]

She could not recollect what happened next and says that she
passed out. When she regained consciousness her mother-in-law was sitting next
to her. She learned from her mother-in-law that she had been raped. “When
I recovered, my mother-in-law was sitting there. The men had gone. My
mother-in-law said, ‘I saw what happened. It is a matter of shame. The
men raped you.’”

The following morning, Nandita’s mother-in-law took
her to the medical center. Nandita had boot marks on her back and bruises all
over her body. Scratches covered her face, neck, shoulders, and breasts. She
did not tell the doctor she was raped and guessed that her mother-in-law had
also chosen to remain silent because of the “shame.”

Nandita’s husband, who remained with the Maoists till
2003 and eventually returned home, also spoke to Human Rights Watch and
confirmed that he got news of the rape from other Maoists soon after it
occurred. He recalled how the villagers had sent word to him:

I learned about the rape, and I came back after a week. She
was in a bad way. She could not sit or lie down. My mother used to keep putting
turmeric paste on her and that is how she survived.[94]

Nandita still suffers from backaches and lower abdominal
pain and wants compensation.[95]

III. Sexual
Violence by Maoists

There are relatively few
reported cases of sexual violence by the Maoists. Nonetheless, Human Rights
Watch documented seven cases of sexual violence by Maoists. In most interviews
conducted by Human Rights Watch, villagers said that Maoists demanded food and
shelter, and provided very little opportunity to refuse.

In addition, the Maoists practiced
their own form of summary “justice.” Human Rights Watch documented
two cases where a Maoist was accused of sexual violence; the cadres beat the
perpetrator in public and banished him from the village.

Abduction
and Rape by Maoists

The Maoists forcibly
recruited people—including children—into combat.[96] Some women and girls recruited by the Maoists,
forcibly or willingly, reported rapes by Maoist cadres. Alleged rapes
perpetrated by Maoists also occurred when women or girls were found alone at
home, or performing chores on their own in isolated spots. In other cases, the
perpetrators were local goons prior to the conflict who were emboldened after
joining the Maoist party.

Nirmala, 2004

Nirmala says she was living
with her parents and her one-year-old son during the war because her husband
was working in India. The Maoists often came to the village seeking food and
shelter, but her family refused. She told the Maoists that they had no right to
make such demands because people worked for a living, while Maoists wanted
everything for free.

In March 2004, a group of
about seven or eight Maoists known to her from prior visits approached her
while she was working in the jungle with other women scattered in different
places. The Maoists asked her to accompany them for a program. When she
refused, they slapped her and shouted at her. Then they tied her hands behind
her back and forced her to walk with them. Nirmala said she was held captive
for about 11 month and moved around from place to place. During this period,
she was made to work as a porter for the Maoists, carrying their clothes, and helping
them with their daily chores. “I was not free to leave at any
point,” Nirmala said.[97]

Initially she was the only woman who was abducted. But over
time, “there were several other women who were similarly forcibly taken
by this group of Maoists, and who had to do the same things,” Nirmala
told Human Rights Watch.

During her time in captivity with the Maoists, Nirmala said
she was raped several times. The first time she was raped was by a lake, in a
hut set up by local goatherds. She described the first episode of sexual
assault:

I was raped by two Maoists that time. I recall another two
kept sentry outside the hut. It was probably around 10 at night when three or
four men entered the hut I was in. I was not asleep, just sitting there. One of
the men told me to take my clothes off, and they slapped me when I refused.
Then one of them grabbed my wrists and another one started to take my clothes
off. I don’t remember who raped me first, but they took turns—one
holding me down by my hands on the floor, while the other one raped me.[98]

Nirmala had severe pain after
the rape in her lower abdomen, arms, legs, and back. She said some female
Maoists came to check on her around 1 a.m. that night and laughed at her.
“I could tell from their reaction to me that they knew what had happened.
They just laughed and said ‘Now you know what it’s like to be put
in your place,’” Nirmala said.[99]

She told Human Rights Watch
she was raped again by two other Maoist cadres. “During all the rapes,
the men kept threatening me, and used very bad language, dirty words. After
this second incident, they took my top and tied it to a tree for all to see.
I’m not sure what that meant, but guess it was meant to humiliate me even
more.”[100]

After her family identified
which group of Maoists was behind the abduction, Nirmala’s father and
brother negotiated her release. Nirmala told her immediate family, but no one
else knows of the rape. Her sister-in-law and her mother gave her medicines and
herbs to prevent pregnancy. She complained that she continues to suffer because
of the rapes. She does not know if either the government or the Maoist command
took any action against the perpetrators.

My husband and family have been
supportive, but I am a different person now than before. I cry easily. I
can’t eat properly. I have lost so much weight since then. My vagina and
lower abdomen hurt all the time.[101]

Meena, 2004

Meena told a researcher from
Human Rights Watch that Maoists routinely came to her village in Ranbari in
Surkhet district. They often asked her to attend their programs but she always
refused. Eventually, the Maoists abducted her in April 2004 when she was out
gathering wood in the jungles together with other women. A group of 8-10
Maoists arrived, she described:

They told me to come with them. I
refused to go but they wouldn’t have it. They grabbed me and tied my
hands together and my feet together with some cloth, and dragged me about 10
feet before untying my feet and forcing me to walk with them. The Maoists were
all armed, I don’t know what kind of guns they were but I saw they had
guns.[102]

She spent about four months with the Maoists and in that
period she moved from one place to another with them. “Sometimes we slept
in the huts used by goatherds in the jungles, sometimes we would stay in
villages where we would be fed,” Meena recounted.[103]The Maoists asked her to carry things for them,
wash, and take care of other domestic chores. Meena said Maoists raped her five
times during her captivity.

Recalling the first episode, Meena said: “The first
time I was raped was the day after my capture, in one of the goatherd
huts,” and vividly described how she remembered that it was at night when
she was inside the hut and it was raining. She continued:

Three of them came into the hut, and immediately one of
them told me to take my clothes off. I refused and one of them then kicked me
so hard that I fell down against the ground….One of them covered my mouth
and told me to shut up. Two of them held me down on the ground, while the other
one raped me. They all three took turns raping me. Afterwards, they told me
that I’d be killed if I dared tell anyone about the rapes.[104]

On the second occasion she
was raped, the perpetrators were different, Meena said: “I was
raped by two Maoists the second time. I remember that one of them tried to put
his penis in my mouth but I was so disgusted he stopped.”[105]

On the third occasion, there were two men again. Once again,
Meena described the location and time clearly—that “It was night
time, and like the first time, I was raped in a goatherd hut,” she said.
On the fourth and fifth times she was raped, “it was only one perpetrator
each time,” Meena explained.

The last two times were different from the other rapes
because she recalled that “there were other women who had been captured
by the Maoists,” at that time. Trying to reason why the last two times
only one perpetrator was involved, she said: “Because there were more
women they did not have to share one woman between them.”[106]

But Meena could not confirm that the other women were raped:
“I don’t know for sure what happened to the other women, but I
assume that, like me, they were raped.” She explained how her belief that
other women were possibly raped was grounded in what happened on the last
occasion she was raped:

There were three of us women captives, and there were three
men. I know that each took one of us women with him, but I didn’t see the
other two women getting raped. We women didn’t talk about it amongst
ourselves. I don’t know the names of the other women.[107]

In addition to penile penetrative
sex and forced oral sex, Meena said she also experienced attempts at forced
anal sex. [108]

Meena told Human Rights Watch
she did not get pregnant from these rapes. She said that the Maoists who raped
her either used a condom or would give her a small white pill to swallow after
the rapes, which she believes
were intended to prevent pregnancy.[109]

After about four months with
the Maoists, Meena was eventually able to escape, reach home, and move into a
camp for displaced persons. She later learned from villagers that Maoists had
come to her village looking for her soon after her escape. Meena had not
complained about the rapes and wondered if any of the Maoists were punished:

I don’t know if any of these men
were ever punished. There was no commander as such of the group of Maoists who
held me captive. Sometimes we would be joined by other Maoist groups if there
was an educational program but otherwise it was just this small group and they
all seemed equal to one another…. It’s hard to describe how
helpless I felt. No amount of crying or screaming or begging helped. Everything
they did was against my will.[110]

Meena is now married and has
two sons. But she says she still suffers because of the pain. She has no
appetite and has constant lower abdominal pain.

Rekha, 2003

Rekha said Maoists used to
turn up in her village every so often asking for food, or encouraging people to
attend their programs. She had planned to attend one such dance program in a
neighboring village in June 2003 but was delayed and asked her friends
to carry on. She left from her village at around 10 p.m. on her own. On the way
she met a Maoist:

I ran into a Maoist whom I knew from before because he used
to come to my house for food. He asked me to go to the dance with him, but I
said I was ok going by myself.[111]

When she refused to go to the dance
program with him, he turned violent:

He got angry with me then and grabbed me and threw me down
a small cliff by the side of the path. He came down to where I’d been
thrown. I started hitting him, and he started hitting me back. We must have
fought like that for a while, I don’t know how long.[112]

She told Human Rights Watch
that he beat her and raped her and forced her to perform oral sex:

I was resisting him and he then hit me
so hard that the skin from my skull and forehead came off. He must have used
some instrument to do this, but I don’t know what he used. The skin was
just hanging off my face, in front of my eyes, like a curtain. He raped me. I
was shouting from the pain. I remember a searing pain in my head and my left
arm which had broken when he threw me down the cliff.[113]

After raping her, he warned her that she would be killed if
she told anyone and then ran away. “He might have thought I was
dead…. I couldn’t move. I was bleeding heavily, and in great pain.
I lost consciousness,” Rekha said.[114]

When she regained
consciousness after what seemed like several hours, Rekha saw her friends
around her. There was blood oozing out of her mouth, and they could see the
white of her skull from where the skin had ripped off. They took Rekha to the
hospital where she received 36 stitches on her forehead. A researcher from
Human Rights Watch who spoke to Rekha observed deep scars on her forehead and
scalp. She disclosed the rape to the doctor but does not have any medical
documentation from that time. She said she was given some medication and
guessed that might have prevented a pregnancy. She did not report the rape to
the police or anyone else except close friends and has not seen the perpetrator
since. She told villagers that she had had a nasty fall to explain her
injuries.

Beena, 2002

During the war, Beena used to
live with her parents in their village. She told Human Rights Watch that
Maoists came regularly to her village for food or to ask villagers to attend
their programs. There were several incidents of forcible Maoist recruitment
from her village. The Maoists abducted Beena’s brothers as well, but
later sent them home, and killed one of her cousins. During this period, the
army and police also came to the village asking for information about the
Maoists.

Beena told Human Rights Watch
that one afternoon in July 2002 she went down to the river, about 10-15 minutes
from her village, to bathe and wash clothes. The river, surrounded by fields
and not houses, was in a secluded area, she explained.

As she washed clothes, a
group of six or seven young men, whom she recognized as Maoists from their
previous visits to her village, approached her. She knew one of the men
personally as a former student from her school. “These men
didn’t hide the fact that they were Maoists. They would say so proudly.
There is no doubt that this group were all Maoists,” she said.[115]

The Maoists asked her to attend a program that was taking
place somewhere close by and she refused to go. Her refusal earned their wrath
and they turned violent:

When I said no, a couple of them grabbed me and dragged me
by my hands along the riverbank to a place further away from the fields. They
stopped where it was particularly desolate. They started slapping me, hitting
me with sticks. My head started bleeding heavily. I also got a deep cut on the
side of my waist; I remember looking down and seeing something poking out from
the cut from my insides.[116]

As they were hitting her they let her know it was revenge. “They
said things to me like ‘We wouldn’t be doing this if you had agreed
to come to our program,’” she said.

They swore and used dirty words. Then one of them told me
to take off my clothes…. I refused, so they started clawing at my clothes
and ripping them off.[117]

Beena described how they forcibly stripped and groped her,
and proceeded to rape her:

All I remember after that is that I was thrown on the
ground and at least three of them raped me. I might have been raped by more
than the three, but I lost consciousness so don’t remember.”[118]

Beena later learned that when
she failed to return, her brothers went to look for her, found her bleeding in
the fields, and immediately took her to the hospital. She told the doctor that
she had been raped, and said she was prescribed medicines and injections. She
also received stitches for the cut around the waist from which she still has a
deep scar. She never saw the perpetrators again. She complained to the police
but they took no action.

Beena is now married and has
two children. She lives in her husband’s village. Only her brothers know
about the rape. She has not told her husband.

Santoshi, 2006

Santoshi said both the
Maoists and security forces came to her village often during the conflict—the
Maoists on foot, and security forces in vehicles. They were scared that
Maoists or security forces would come and take them away. They were too scared
to even go to the market and ran away when they saw groups of men. The fear was
amplified by stories they heard of Maoists forcibly recruiting, and security
forces taking people away from their village and surrounding villages.

When she was about two or
three months pregnant, Santoshi was working in the fields at around 7 p.m. She
saw two men wearing shorts and bandanas whom she believed to be Maoists. When
they started approaching her, Santoshi got scared and started to run. But they
caught up with her and grabbed her from the back.

One of them held on to my shoulder and
another put his hand on my mouth. They dragged me to a place near a big mango
tree. They dragged me by my legs and hands so my hands got scraped. They raped
me. [119]

Santoshi told a Human Rights
Watch researcher she became unconscious. When she regained consciousness she
was in a private doctor’s clinic. She later learned that women from the
village had found her lying near the mango tree when they were going back home
from the fields and carried her to the doctor. The doctor asked her to rest to
prevent difficulties giving birth or a uterine prolapse. She says her husband
took care of her at that time, but later began to treat her badly. They were
too scared to complain to police.

She told Human Rights Watch that on most days her husband
ignores that she was raped, but sometimes he taunts her and calls her a loose
woman. She has started her own sewing business
and supports her children. She told Human Rights Watch that her husband does
not support her or their children.

Maoist
“Justice” for Rape

In two cases documented by
Human Rights Watch, the women told Human Rights Watch that Maoists accepted
that one of their members was responsible for rape. In both cases, the women said
that Maoists publicly beat the perpetrators. In one case, the Maoists said they
had expelled the perpetrator from their ranks.

Case of Madhu, 2006

Madhu told Human Rights Watch
that a number of people from her village had joined the Maoists during the
conflict. Her father, who also spoke with Human Rights Watch, explained that
many local goons joined the Maoist party at that time, misbehaving and bullying
the villagers. Maoists often came around asking for food and sometimes used to
encourage people to join them. They also asked Madhu, who was a minor in
school, to join them in combat.[120]

Her neighbor, who was about
20-25 years old and had joined the Maoists, used to follow her all the time,
she said, asking her to go out with him. Madhu complained to her mother
who scolded the neighbor. A few days later he spoke to Madhu and told her that
her mother castigated him. He pressured her again to be his girlfriend and join
the Maoists. “I said, ‘No I don’t want to go.’ Then I
walked away. Maybe he was angry,” she said.[121]

A few days after her
conversation with him, Madhu had gone to watch television at a neighbor’s
house. At around 10 p.m., when she stepped out to go to the toilet, she found
that he was waiting outside.

He grabbed me and dragged me to the
fields. He was alone. He put his hand on my mouth so I could not shout. He
raped me. He kept saying, ‘I will marry you.’ I said, ‘I
don’t want to marry you.’ He kept me there for nearly two hours.[122]

When she returned home she told her father who informed the
Maoists the following day. Both she and the rapist were brought to another
neighbor’s house where Maoists were temporarily sheltering:

There were many Maoists there. They kept asking me to join
them, but I refused. Then the Maoists brought him in front of me. They beat him
a lot. He begged pardon in front of everyone. He was told to leave the village.[123]

She did not see him until after the peace agreement, when he
returned. He is now married and still her neighbor. Madhu, at a minimum, wants compensation. She said she did not want to
pursue investigation and prosecution because she had “no choice”
but to forgive him. “What else can I do?” she asked.[124]

Janaki, 2005

Janaki’s husband worked
in India, and she lived alone with her son during the conflict. Her brother and
his family lived close by. Maoists used to often ask villagers to join their
public indoctrination programs and cultural events.

In early June 2005, Janaki had gone to a hospital two hours
away because her son was sick. Exhausted after returning from the hospital, she
had fallen asleep. Suddenly she was woken by a voice calling out to her and
banging on her door. It was around 9:30 p.m. There was a man shouting that she
had to go out and join a Maoist program. She explained that she had a sick
child and could not go but he insisted and dragged her outside.[125]

He pulled her out into the street and said he was taking her
to the meeting. Instead, he took her to a desolate side street behind her house
and pushed her down on the road. She continued:

My back was hurting. He had put his hand on my mouth to
make me stop shouting. He raped me and then left me on the street and went
away. He warned me, ‘If you tell anyone I will kill you.’[126]

Despite the overall fear at that time she retorted: “I
may die, but I will not let you go.”

She was in a lot of pain and was frightened. She walked back
home slowly, crying, picked up her child, went to older brother’s house
in the same village, and told him what happened. There was a Maoist meeting
going on that day, and her brother went to the Maoists and complained to them.[127]

The following morning, some
women Maoists came to Janaki and asked her to help them identify the
perpetrator. They took her to various houses where the Maoists were
staying. “They said, ‘You don’t have to confront him, just
point him out,’” she recalled.

According to Janaki, when she pointed out the perpetrator,
the Maoists were not surprised. She learned from them that he was accused of
rape twice before in two different locations. The Maoists said, “We
can’t keep him anymore.” She narrated what the Maoists did:

Then they beat him. When he saw me with the Maoists, he was
very scared. He was beaten a lot. Even I beat him with my slipper. He asked for
forgiveness. He was beaten so badly, he could not get up for two days.[128]

Janaki did not see the
perpetrator again.

She did not go to the doctor.
She was very frightened and worried that her husband would be angry. When she
informed her husband, he was indeed furious. He no longer lives with the family
and does not support her. Neither her husband, nor her brother wanted to
complain to the police or other authorities. She told Human Rights Watch that
she suffered for a long time because of the rape. She used to have nightmares
and lower abdominal pain.[129] She wants compensation. “I have a small
child. I want to educate him properly. My husband doesn’t care about the
family.”[130]

IV. Barriers
to Justice and Reparations for Survivors of Sexual Violence

All the women that Human Rights Watch interviewed expressed the
need for justice, compensation, or both. However, women have come forward in
relatively few cases to report to the police their experiences of sexual
violence during the conflict.

A combination of factors—severe limitations posed by
Nepal’s criminal justice system, fear of retaliation, and social
stigma—hinder women’s ability to file criminal complaints and have
them thoroughly investigated. Nepal’s criminal justice system does not
create an enabling environment for survivors of sexual violence, especially
conflict-survivors, to seek justice or reparations.

Need for Psycho-Social Support and Other Services

Until now the Nepal government does not have the capacity to
provide proper psycho-social support services for survivors of sexual violence
and their families to help them overcome stigma or fear, or cope with the
consequences of sexual assault and torture during the conflict. Such services
are not only important for the overall wellbeing of rape survivors and their
families, but can also play a critical part in helping women decide whether
they want to seek justice and supporting them and their families through
complex legal procedures.

Nepal’s
historically patriarchal society makes it difficult for survivors of sexual
violence to speak out about the sexual assault without being stigmatized or
blamed. Given the intimate nature of sexual violence, women are often
conditioned by wrong notions of “shame” that deter them from coming
forward to seek justice for sexual assault.

For instance,
Parvati told Human Rights Watch she was raped by a member of the security
forces who visited her house in February 2003 to interrogate her about Maoists.
Villagers blamed her for it:

For two or three days after the incident, the villagers
talked about the incident and blamed me for it. Now they don’t say
anything. So many people suffered.[131]

Parvati also mentioned that she has
spoken with other women in the village. Some admit that they too were raped or
sexually abused by security forces, but chose not to tell their husbands or
other family members, fearing social stigma. She was reluctant to break the
confidence of her friends and Human Rights Watch researchers did not press her
for details.[132]

The importance of
psycho-social assistance was underscored in many cases like that of Shona.[133]In
2002, police detained, tortured, and interrogated her for giving food to
Maoists. After she was released, the officer-in-charge visited her home and
forced her to have sex. Because her husband was in India at that time, he
learned from villagers only later that his wife had been detained, tortured,
and raped, and that she was mentally disturbed, wandering around the village
muttering to herself, often subject to violent rages.[134]He told Human Rights Watch that by the time he
learned of the incident and returned to the village, “she was feeling
calmer,” but was still disturbed.

We had no money, so there was no way to seek counseling.
Now she is much better. She doesn’t get angry any more. Earlier, she
would roam around and forget what she was doing.[135]

Access to psycho-social support services are not just important
for those women who were raped but also their immediate family and community.
In some cases, women interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they censored
themselves because they were afraid of being mistreated or rejected by their
husbands and in-laws. In some interviews, the husbands expressed their
frustration as well, because they were unable to protect their wives or secure
justice on their behalf.

Women told Human Rights Watch they experienced domestic violence
or neglect by their family because of the rape. For example, Sita who
was raped by security forces when they came to question her family in September
2002 said her husband often gets into a rage and
she continues to face physical violence because of the rape even though more
than 10 years have passed. She says she retaliates by blaming him for
failing to come to her aid, although he was present in an adjoining room while
she was raped.

My husband keeps talking about it. Every time he talks
about it, I feel ill. I am living only because of the children. My husband
doesn’t understand. He is often angry. My health is not okay.[136]

Santoshi said her husband uses the fact that Maoists raped
her to silence her when they have domestic disagreements. She is too scared to
protest or retaliate when her husband is abusive because she wants to avoid
being humiliated and reminded of the rape:

But sometimes when he gets very angry he brings it up and
says I am a loose woman and I should get out of the house. His behavior towards
me changed after this happened. We were happy before this. But after this
everything changed. I feel worthless.[137]

Similarly, Gayatri’s
in-laws and husband started ill-treating and neglecting her merely because she
was in army custody and in the company of men for an extended period of time,
calling her a “loose” woman. She had not disclosed to them that she
was repeatedly raped in custody. She told Human Rights Watch that she continues
to silently suffer abuse and neglect.[138]

There have been some attempts to assist survivors of sexual and
gender based violence. Advocacy Forum and others facilitated psycho-social and
legal counseling support wherever possible by connecting the women to mental
health experts in Kathmandu and paying for the travel and counseling expenses.[139] Survivors facing domestic violence as a
fall-out of stigma from conflict-era sexual assault were unaware of any
available government services to intervene and assist women facing such assaults.

Unless the Nepal government ensures that survivors of sexual
assault and their families can seek counseling through government health
services to cope with sexual assault and its fallout, it will be difficult for
individual nongovernmental efforts to reach out to women in a systematic manner
and help them overcome the stigma of rape or prevent domestic violence within
their communities or families because of rape.

Similarly, survivors of domestic violence, including those who
experience such violence as a consequence of conflict-era rape, should be able
to report such violence and avail of services aimed at assisting survivors of
domestic violence.

Lack of Medico-legal Treatment and Evidence Collection

In addition to the absence of psycho-social services, the Nepal
government has not introduced a standard protocol for treatment and
medico-legal examination of rape survivors to provide therapeutic care and
secure any likely medical evidence in a standard and timely manner.[140] There are also no training programs for
doctors on the medico-legal aspects of sexual assault.

The absence of a standard treatment and examination protocol to
document and collect possible medical evidence of sexual assault, coupled with
a lack of training, led to loss of medical evidence of conflict-era rape. A
protocol, even if introduced in the future, will not help secure physical
medico-legal evidence of rape that occurred during the conflict-era, but it
will at least pave the way for better long-term treatment and survivor care.

The challenges of
accessing immediate medico-legal examination and treatment were amplified
during the conflict for multiple reasons, not just because of a lack of a
standard protocol. Most of the women who spoke to Human Rights Watch said that
going to a medical facility immediately after the rape was not possible because
of a variety of reasons—stigma, inability to travel long distances,
unsafe environment, or lack of necessary financial resources. Government-run
health clinics were barely present or functional in most districts during the
conflict-era. This made it all the more difficult for survivors of rape to
secure any possible medical evidence. For example, Nandita, who was raped in
February 2003, went to a doctor and reported the rape because she was anxious
about HIV transmission.[141] But the doctor, a private practitioner in
a small district town, had no training to provide her any information about
medico-legal evidence, nor did he attempt to gather such evidence.

I was very upset and felt unwell. I told the doctor that I
was raped. I told him to check my body. I was scared of AIDS. The doctor gave
me medicines, but did not examine me.[142]

Madhavi, who was raped in her
village by security forces during a search operation, says that initially she
was too distressed to look after her own injuries and also had no money.
“I had no money. The soldiers took all the money. How could I go
to the hospital? I also did not want to live,” she said. She could only
go to a hospital many days after she was raped when local human rights
organizations came forward to help after news about the killings of her
relatives spread.[143]

Gayatri, who was
detained, tortured, and repeatedly raped in army custody, visited a hospital
after her release. After a free HIV test at a nearby hospital, Gayatri borrowed
money for further treatment. She told Human Rights Watch she borrowed about NPR
50,000 to 60,000 (USD 1,000) from her aunt who was part of a savings
group, which her father later repaid.[144]

Some sought medical treatment for injuries but did not tell the
doctor they were raped because of fear or stigma. Bipasha’s
husband told Human Rights Watch how terrified they were to report that security
forces raped his wife.

It was during the Emergency. There was
so much fear. We did not dare say anything to anyone, police, doctors, no one.
I just took care of her. She was in a terrible state, sometimes angry,
sometimes weeping. For two months, I looked after her. Her body was full of
bruises. She was very weak. I took her to hospital, and they gave her three
bottles of glucose. But we did not say anything about the rape.[145]

Daya, who was
raped by security forces in January 2003, said she went to the doctor but did
not disclose the rape: “I was ashamed so I did not say anything
about the rape…. I was scared I might get pregnant. But after a few
weeks, I got my period and I was very happy,” she said.[146]

Meera was beaten and raped by security forces when they came
to her house to interrogate her about Maoist whereabouts in August 2003. The
day after the rape she went to a hospital with a neighbor to get treatment for
the welts and cuts she had. “The doctors asked how I was beaten. I did
not mention the rape. I was too ashamed. I was given tablets and
ointment,” Meera said.[147]

Similarly,
Nandita told Human Rights Watch that her mother-in-law took her to a hospital
nearby after security forces raped her when they visited her village for an
anti-Maoist combing operation. But neither she nor her mother-in-law told the
doctor and he did not examine her for rape. The doctor was also scared, she
said.

The doctors used to send everyone away after general
treatment. I don’t know if my mother-in-law even told them about the
rape. She most likely did not want to mention the shameful subject. She was
just crying. The doctor kept me for two or three hours, and then sent me back
home with some tablets…. I was scared that I might have become pregnant.
But after two months, my husband took me to the medical center and there was
nothing.[148]

A discussion with
a doctor who worked in the same district during
the conflict as some of the victims revealed that he had treated cases where
women came to him. He said that the women told him that security forces had beaten
them, and that they had injuries including severe bruises, cuts, and fractures.
He suspected that some women may have been raped, but they did not mention it
and he did not want to embarrass them by asking.[149]“Mostly, the women used to come with injuries
from beatings. Some had vaginal infections or injuries. They did not really
talk about rape.”[150]

Even in cases where women had medical examinations soon after the
sexual assault, they did not have access to the records, or had lost or
destroyed the file for fear of being caught with it. For example, Gayatri who
was repeatedly raped in army custody in 2001 told Human Rights Watch,

When I was released my aunt took me to a hospital….
She was scared that I would have got AIDS. They used to do free blood tests in
that hospital. The blood test was normal. I didn’t do any test for
pregnancy because there was no way I could be pregnant—I was bleeding
heavily every day….My aunt and I destroyed all the hospital papers. We
burned it because we did not want anyone to find out. It’s shameful. I
haven’t told anyone what happened to me.[151]

Rekha, who said she was raped by a Maoist and brutally assaulted
on her head, said she went to the hospital within hours. Recalling the hospital
visit, she said:

They took me to the hospital. I received 36 stitches on my
forehead. I told the doctors that I had been raped but I don’t have the
medical documentation from that time. I did not get pregnant. It could be that the
doctors gave me some medicine for that.[152]

After the end of the conflict, it was impossible for women to
secure any likely medical evidence of the sexual assault because of the time
that elapsed since the sexual assault.

Absence of Victim and Witness Protection

A majority of women who spoke to Human Rights Watch said
that it was inconceivable to even consider going to the police to report sexual
assault during the conflict, especially where security forces were themselves
the perpetrators of such violence. For example, Anita’s husband told
Human Rights Watch why they did not file a police complaint after his wife was
raped by a member of the security forces:

I was angry. She was upset. But what could I do? If I tried
to complain, I would have been beaten. I would have been killed. The soldiers behaved
very badly. They killed someone’s husband, someone’s son. They beat
people. And they raped my wife.[153]

In addition to the overall insecurity and fears, several women
interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were threatened with violence or
death if they dared to tell anyone about the incident. Radhika who was
repeatedly raped after she was taken into police custody and illegally detained
for many days in the police station, said, “I remember the DSP
[District Superintendent of Police] telling me before release that I
wouldn’t live if I dared talk about what had happened.”[154]

In another case, one woman who was forcibly abducted by Maoists
and gang raped during the 11 months that she spent with them traveling through
the forests, told Human Rights Watch:

Before my release, the two men who raped me warned me not
to say anything about what had happened to me, they threatened to kill me if I
spoke about the rapes.[155]

To ensure proper prosecutions for
sexual violence, the Nepal government will need to develop a witness protection
mechanism to ensure that there is no intimidation by members of the security
forces and former Maoist combatants.

Failures of the Justice System

Instead of supporting rape survivors who are willing to come
forward and seek justice, Nepal’s criminal justice system creates
insurmountable barriers. For instance, after the peace agreement, when he was
able to overcome fear of reprisals, Shona’s husband says he tried to
register a complaint, but without success.

We want justice.… I want the inspector
… to be punished…. After the peace agreement, I went to the police
station to register a complaint. But they refused to register it. I said,
‘This was the inspector at that time. You can confirm our case from your
records.’ But the officer said that nothing can be done. They sent me
away and said such cases will not be registered.[156]

The Muluki Ain, Nepal’s national codified legal system, lays
down the law governing rape. Among other things, the Muluki Ain confines rape
to penile-penetrative sexual assault, making other forms of penetration
punishable with far lesser sentences.[157]

Human Rights Watch documented at least four instances where the
sexual assault included insertion of objects inside women’s vaginas,
forced oral or anal sex, and forced masturbation.[158] In one case, a woman told Human Rights
Watch that perpetrators had rubbed salt and chili powder into her vagina.

Apart from the definitional and sentencing gaps, the procedural
hurdle to report rape adds to women’s woes making justice next to
impossible for a vast majority of women who experienced sexual assault during
the conflict. The Muluki Ain includes a stringent time limit of 35 days from
the date of the incident for women to report the offence.[159] Women who do not report a crime of rape
within 35 days of being raped are legally barred from doing so.[160]

According to Advocacy Forum, even where women or their family
members were brave enough to go to police stations and orally report the rapes
to the police within days of the incident, there is no documentary proof that
they had done so and the police took no steps to register and investigate their
cases. For example, Beena told Human Rights Watch she was raped by Maoists when
she refused to join a program that they asked her to join. “I
reported the rapes to the police but they did nothing as far as I know. I did
not see the 6-7 men around the village again,” she said.[161]

Nandita’s husband says he is angry:

We want these people punished. We just don’t have the
reach or the power. If I did, we would have dealt with it a long time ago. We
need support.[162]

Purna Maya’s Case

Advocacy Forum’s landmark efforts with
the Purna Maya case highlights the injustice caused by the 35-day time limit.
T0 date, because the complaint is “time-barred,” no criminal
investigation has been ordered.

During the conflict, Purna Maya says she lived with her
daughter and earned a living running a small tea-stall. She was not in touch
with her husband.

The tea-stall was by the road, and the army often came by
to ask her about Maoists who came to the stall. They also started interrogating
her about her husband’s whereabouts, accusing him of being a Maoist.
Eventually, they came and took her away to an army camp in Dailekh district
in October or November 2004, where she says she was raped and tortured in
army custody.

Purna Maya’s
Struggle for Justice: A Timeline

Verbal
complaints of rape, during the conflict:
According to Advocacy Forum, Purna
Maya made verbal complaints of rape to the Dailekh police office and district
administration, to no avail.

Attempt
to file a First Information Report (FIR), September 2011: Advocacy Forum and local
women’s organizations, acting on behalf of Purna Maya, tried to lodge a
written police complaint with the Dailekh Police Office, which
refused to accept it on the grounds that it was time-barred because it had
crossed the 35-day limit.

Appeal
against police refusal to file FIR: As per criminal procedure, Advocacy Forum appealed the
police office’s refusal to register a criminal complaint to the Chief
Development Officer (CDO) in the District Administration Office. The CDO
orally upheld the police position that the case was time-barred, without a
written order.

Petition
in the Supreme Court, December 2011: Advocacy Forum, together with other leading
nongovernmental organizations in Nepal, attempted to file a petition in the
Supreme Court of Nepal on behalf of Purna Maya seeking an order from the
court directing the police to register and investigate the case. The
Registrar of the Supreme Court, who is tasked with deciding which cases can
be filed before the court, refused to allow the petition to be filed, saying
that they need to approach the CDO according to procedures and ultimately
ordered that “[t]he petitioners, in this case,
have been found approaching the court directly without following the legal
procedures the writ could not be registered….Do as provided by
law.” Advocacy Forum told Human Rights
Watch that in making this order, the registrar failed to pay attention to the
critical fact that it had already approached the CDO, been refused verbally,
and the officer had avoided giving a written order.

Order
of the Supreme Court, January 2012:
The Supreme Court of Nepal issued an order confirming the
registrar’s decision disallowing the petition, saying that the
petitioner should follow the legal procedures to seek remedy, implying that
they needed to go back to the CDO. The Supreme Court disregarded its earlier
judgment in 2008, where it compared the limitation period in rape cases to
other offences and said that the time given to file a complaint of rape was
inadequate and caused injustice.
In
December 2012, Advocacy Forum and REDRESS took Purna Maya’s case before
the UN Human Rights Committee, saying that it had exhausted all local
remedies and had failed to receive justice. The case has yet to be decided.

Nepal’s criminal laws also do not incorporate the
doctrine of command or superior responsibility, making it more difficult for
many rape survivors from the conflict era to seek justice since, in many cases
they were not able to single out perpetrators. But the authorities can identify
the unit and commanding authorities that participated in the area operations.

Human Rights Watch spoke to one survivor, for example, who
after narrating her experience of rape and beatings at the hands of security
forces despaired: “I don’t know who they are, how can the
perpetrators be punished?”[163]
Similarly, Anita’s husband felt complaining about how his wife was raped
was futile: “If the right person is
punished, it would be enough for us. But we don’t know the person so it
is not possible.”[164]

Overall, impunity for egregious abuses during the conflict remains
the norm, including for rape cases.

Exclusion of Survivors of Sexual
Violence from Reparations

Almost all the women whom we interviewed said they wanted
compensation and other reparation for the violence and trauma they survived.
However, Nepal’s Interim Relief Program for conflict-affected victims is
limited. It only provides monetary compensation and that too covers only family
members of those who have disappeared or were killed, excluding those who
experienced sexual assault or torture during the conflict. As Nandita pointed
out:

People whose children died, whose husbands died, they have
received compensation. We have not received anything.[165]

Similarly, the compensation for
Torture Act, 1996, which includes those who experience “cruel, inhuman
and degrading treatment,” has effectively excluded all conflict-survivors
who experienced torture, including sexual assault in detention, because it
imposes an outer 35-day limit from the date of the torture or release to make a
complaint and seek compensation, making it almost impossible to seek
compensation. As one woman said,

Other victims have been compensated. I was tortured too. I
want compensation but I am worried that the government will not look after
me…. I am worried my husband might start creating problems. But I told
him that if we don’t talk about it, our file will not move.[166]

After the 2006 peace
agreement, Nepal set up Local Peace Committees (LPC) at the community level as
part of post-conflict resolution. These are local quasi-representative bodies
of the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction and their mandate includes
assisting with the implementation of the CPA, mediating local level conflicts,
and monitoring the implementation of the relief and reconstruction programs.
But the 2009 terms of reference of these committees are silent on gender-based
violence during conflict.[167]

A key function of the peace
committees is to identify and register those conflict-affected persons eligible
for compensation. In at least one case, a family had gone to the local peace
committee making a complaint of rape and seeking compensation. Radha’s
husband, who had helped her approach the local peace committee for compensation
said:

I told them, ‘How can they deny it? All the villagers
also know what happened. The VDC signed the statement to say that my wife was
raped.’[168]
The peace committee said, ‘Please wait. We will talk to the CDO and get
back to you.’ We are still waiting. They treat us like toys. Everyone
keeps asking questions. ‘How?’ ‘Why?’ All these
questions hurt our pride, our dignity.[169]

Similarly, Shona’s husband, explained how he tried to
complain about how his wife was raped during the conflict and argued that she
too needed to be compensated but was told his case wife’s case could not
be considered for compensation:

I went to the VDC [Village Development Committee, a local
government body], but he refused to register our case. He said our case was not
valid. Actually so many people were making [compensation] claims, they were not
taking it seriously. If we had gone to the VDC with a human rights
organization, it may have been valid. But we had no one to take us…. We
know of other cases where Advocacy Forum has got people compensation.[170]

Several women reported that their husbands taunted them for
speaking about rape and not receiving any justice or compensation. For
instance, Manorama said her husband criticizes her as having brought
“shame” on the family for nothing. She recounted what he said:
“You made so much noise. You have exposed yourself. It was all a secret,
but now things are different. What was the point? You haven’t got any
compensation either.”[171]

Daya said that villagers who
now laugh at her behind her back might think otherwise if she received money.
“If I get compensation, the villagers may treat me with more
respect,” she said.[172]

Risk of Impunity through Amnesty

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2006 consolidated a
series of commitments to human rights, including the establishment of a Truth
and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). After many years of stalling, a deeply
flawed TRC bill was passed into law in May 2014. The act called for the
formation of a high-level commission to investigate serious human rights
violations committed during Nepal’s armed conflict from 1996 to 2006.
Troublingly, it granted the commission discretion to recommend amnesty for
perpetrators if grounds for that determination are deemed reasonable. The
government would then decide whether to grant an amnesty. The act does not
define “reasonable.”[173]

Although section 26(2)
contains a specific exception from amnesty for rape, the bill does not address
the 35-day statute of limitation period on reporting rape under the Nepali
criminal code, which precludes victims from accessing justice. The provision on
amnesty is identical to section 23 of the 2012 ordinance, which had been
explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court in January 2014 as unconstitutional
and in breach of Nepal’s international legal obligations.

Furthermore, the current act
enumerates the serious human rights violations that would fall within the
jurisdiction of the commission, including murder, abduction, rape and sexual
violence, forced evictions, and mental and physical torture but section 26
contains vague language that does not completely reject amnesty, leaving open
the possibility that perpetrators of these crimes might instead benefit from an
amnesty.

The Office of the High Commission for Human Rights delivered
a scathing critique of the act, pinpointing all the ways in which the act falls
short of Nepal’s international obligations and most crucially, continues
to undermine victims’ attempts at justice and accountability.[174]

V. Recommendations

The political leadership in Nepal acknowledged that sexual
abuse occurred during the conflict when it signed the peace agreement in 2006.
However, the government has yet to develop mechanisms to investigate these
allegations and take steps to provide justice and reparations.

To the Government of Nepal

Ensure that the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission or any other independent commission is specifically
tasked with a mandate of investigating allegations of conflict-related rape and
other forms of sexual violence. Such a commission should have adequate powers
and resources at its disposal to:

Adopt gender-sensitive
procedures that respect the privacy and dignity of survivors.

Engage counselors,
interpreters, or special educators to ensure that all procedures are accessible
to people with disabilities and to minimize re-trauma.

Order victim and witness
protection measures.

Refer survivors and their
families to psycho-social counseling and other support.

Amend the Interim Relief
Scheme to ensure that conflict-era victims of sexual violence and torture are
eligible for reparations. Develop, in consultation with local women’s
rights groups and women from conflict-affected communities, a reparation
program that is in accordance with international standards and includes, at a
minimum:

Individual compensation and
other rehabilitative services for those women who come forward with their
experiences of rape and other forms of sexual violence. Rehabilitative services
should take all appropriate measures to promote the physical, cognitive, and
psychological recovery, and social reintegration of survivors of sexual
violence and their families in an environment that fosters the health, welfare,
self-respect, dignity, and autonomy of the survivor. Rehabilitative services
should include livelihood and other support tailored to meet the specific needs
of women, including age and disability-specific needs, the economic impact of
raising children born out of rape, and whether they are female-headed
households.

Community-based
interventions to expand services to curb domestic violence in order to assist
those women who experience such violence as a consequence of rape.

Implement legislative,
policy, and programmatic changes as part of a larger reparative framework to
rectify underlying legal, policy, and programmatic barriers or gaps that
prevented conflict-era rape survivors from seeking justice. These changes
should be developed in consultation with local women’s rights activists
and should include:

Amending the criminal laws
to eliminate the 35-day rule for reporting rape and other sexual offences.

Expanding the
definition of sexual offences to include all forms of sexual offences with
appropriate punishments based on harm.

Incorporating command and
superior responsibility for war crimes, torture, and other international crimes
committed by the police and other security forces.

Introducing a uniform
protocol for treatment and medical examination of rape survivors that respects
their privacy and dignity, and minimizes re-trauma.

Training police, doctors,
and judges to ensure they take a gender-sensitive approach to dealing with
survivors of sexual violence.

Creating a victim and
witness protection program for all victims, including rape.

Ensure women’s
participation in the peace process including in any truth commissions that
should comply with international standards.

Encourage local peace
committees to accept complaints of conflict-related sexual assault, and to help
survivors process their applications through the appropriate channels, including
the TRC.

Ensure all police stations
throughout the country are staffed with female police officers who are
adequately trained to deal with victims of sexual violence.

Perform outreach and
educational programs to educate communities about remedies available to victims
of sexual violence.

Train doctors and community
health workers to provide services to victims of rape and other sexual
violence. These should include the ability to address long term impact on rape
survivors from the conflict who need mental health care as well as treatment
for a range of issues we documented including prolapsed uterus, sexually transmitted
disease, and other physical symptoms.

Encourage the National
Human Rights Commission to prepare and make available names of alleged
perpetrators of human rights violations including sexual violence where they
find credible cause for further investigations. Encourage civil society
participation to identify victims of sexual violence and support their efforts
to provide legal and medical assistance.

To the United Nations and International Donor
Community including the US, UK, Japan, and India

Call upon the Nepal
government to draft a constitution that reflects the will of the people and
guarantees fundamental freedoms.

Call upon all political
parties, particularly the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), to cooperate in
investigations into rape and other sexual violence by their members and
supporters.

Assist the government of
Nepal to reform its criminal justice system by providing training to the police
and judiciary.

Assist the government of
Nepal in establishing an effective transitional justice mechanism to
investigate conflict related abuses including sexual violence.

Assist the government of
Nepal in establishing an effective reparation program for survivors of sexual
violence and their families.

Support civil society
organizations that work with victims of sexual violence and assist them with
legal aid and medical treatment.

Acknowledgements

This report was written based on field research by Meenakshi
Ganguly, South Asia director, Aruna Kashyap, senior women’s rights
researcher, and Tejshree Thapa, senior Asia researcher. Kriti Sharma,
disability rights researcher, provided additional research support.

We are very grateful to local NGO’s, activists, and
others who assisted in our research. In particular, we thank Advocacy Forum who
provided invaluable support in reaching out to the victims and making our
documentation possible.

Above all, we thank all the victims and witnesses who spoke
to us about their experiences. Because of the sensitive nature of this
documentation, we have withheld the names of many of those without whose
cooperation this report would not have been possible.

[13]Convention against Torture and
other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (“Convention
against Torture”), G.A. Res. 39/46, U.N. Doc. A/39/51, entered into force
June 26, 1987. Nepal acceded to the Convention against Torture on May 14, 1991.

[16] Nepal became a party to the four Geneva Conventions in 1964.
Customary international humanitarian law has been set out in International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Customary International Humanitarian Law
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005).

[109]
Another woman interviewed by Human Rights Watch also mentioned that the Maoists
used contraception. The International Center for
Transitional Justice and Advocacy Forum documented complaints of forced
abortions, and children born to female cadre after they were raped by
colleagues. See: Center for Transitional Justice and
Advocacy Forum, Across the Lines: The Impact
of Nepal’s Conflict on Women (ICTJ, December 1,2010), http://www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ-Nepal-Across-Lines-2010-English.pdf
(accessed September 10, 2014)

[139]UNFPA
and UNICEF, together with partner organizations used reproductive health camps
to offer medical services as well as confidential and safe access to
psycho-social and legal counseling.

[140] Human
Rights Watch interview with Kopila Adhikari, Board Member, Advocacy Forum, April
24, Kathmandu, 2013. Advocacy
Forum assists survivors of sexual violence and told
Human Rights Watch that doctors provide whatever treatment and care they are
able to and document medico-legal evidence of sexual assault in an ad hoc
manner. Advocacy Forum has worked with two doctors to create a standard format
that they encourage doctors to use, and have had meetings with the attorney general
of Nepal to introduce a standard treatment and examination protocol.

[141] While
a number of women interviewed by Human Rights Watch expressed concern about HIV
transmission because of rape, none of them said that they actually contracted
the infection.

[166] Human
Rights Watch interview with Renuka (pseudonym) who said
she was raped by security forces while she was walking on the road with her
husband in Kanchanpur district in March 2002, location withheld, April 25,
2013.